Jaskier swings the door to the tavern open, a merry tune on his lips. The jaunty jingling of the tree little bells that have given the location its name, announces the new guest. Everybody in the spacey room turns their head to see who has just entered, everybody but one loner in the far corner of the taproom. Flourishing his favourite hat, the one with the long pheasant's feather, Jaskier flashes a bright smile at the crowd. They all look as happy as can be expected on this very special February evening, an evening of good food, wine, music, dance, more wine, and - most of all - love. And this once he is not here to perform but to thoroughly enjoy himself with the woman of his dreams.
Jaskier gazes around. Hmm, it looks like she is not here yet. Well, the night is still young. Perhaps she is taking a rose and violet scented bath at the moment, soaking her perfect, pearly-white skin in the enticing fragrances. Or combing her long, plenteous hair, weaving flowers into her artfully done braids. All for him, her Valentine. Only, where by Melitele's tits can they sit? With all the excitement about the date, he totally forgot to book a table in advance. Bollocks, he cannot spot a single unoccupied one, no matter how he strains his eyes. Well, there are free seats at the table in the far corner. Jaskier is curious about this guest, who is sitting with his back toward him, anyway. Judging by how he is bending over the table, it almost looks as if he was writing. Or is the man drunk already? Whatever it is, he will soon enough find out. With brisk steps, Jaskier crosses the room. The old oaken floorboards creak ominously.
"Hi there, may I?" Jaskier asks merrily, coming up to the table with the stranger from behind. Now he can see that the stylishly clad man with the hat that is even bigger than his own is indeed writing. His quill moves quickly and purposefully across the parchment in elegant loops and lines. He seems to be thoroughly absorbed in his work. Jaskier stops in his tracks, intrigued. Is the man writing a poem?
Not waiting for an answer to his question, Jaskier flops down on the bench opposite the mysterious stranger. The man looks up. Jaskier's eyes grow wide with surprise. His face falls.
"Fuck! What're you doing here, Valdo? I'd hoped you'd died of apoplexy," he gasps out, his expression soured instantly.
"I could ask you the same, could I not, Julian?" the man sneers. "Oxenfurt hardly belongs to you alone. I'm a professor at the university now, if you must know. Finally they got somebody who's not a tacky wastrel who panders to the taste of the masses."
"You're a what?" Jaskier splutters, gaping at his nemesis. "Have you fucked the Dean or how did you become a professor? Even my non-existing cat is more musical than you!"
"Since when is it your business who I fuck?" Valdo Marx asks venomously. "As if it wasn't common knowledge that your Countess de Stael bought that professorship for you. Anyway, you better piss off. I'm waiting for a lady!"
"You? Waiting for a lady? Don't make me laugh! Which lady with her sanity intact would want—" Jaskier chokes on the words, staring at the flower in Valdo's lapel. This cannot— This must be— But there is no doubt. Valdo Marx is wearing a dandelion in his buttonhole. A bright yellow dandelion.
"You— You haven't by any chance been to the fair lately?" Jaskier asks, his eyes still glued to the flower.
"What business is it of yours? I can go to the fair whenever and how often I want. This is a free country. Even a professor can have a little fun once in—" Suddenly, Valdo's tongue refuses to work and his eyes almost pop out of his head. "Why— why're you wearing a violet, Pankratz?" he cokes out. "I'm here to meet the love of my life, my muse, my destiny. The soothsayer told me she'd wear—"
"—a violet. And my Valentine's supposed to be wearing a dandelion." Jaskier lets out a mirthless laugh. "Sorry, pal, I guess we were duped, hoodwinked, swindled and bamboozled, the both of us."
"Fuck. And I've just finished writing a song for her." Valdo grabs the parchment and, theatrically, rips it in two. "What a goddamn bummer!" He sighs deeply.
"Indeed." Jaskier sighs even more dramatically. "Well, I suppose, as we are already here, we can as well have a drink," he then decides. "Waitress!"
And thus, instead of spending a romantic Valentine's night with the love of their life, dancing and flirting and kissing, Jaskier the bard and Valdo the other bard pass the evening drinking copious amounts of beer and wine and gin. And, for once, they are not pissed at each other but get pissed together. Who would have thought this would ever happen?
After most of the love-drunk couples have left the tavern and only a few patrons are still there, Jaskier picks up the pieces of parchment from the floor.
"L-Led's see, ol' chum, berhabs that songofyours isn't all that bad," he slurs. It is not so easy to read as, for some unfathomable reason, the letters are all double - what moron writes like this? - but Jaskier gives it his best shot. And soon, the two sing - or rather bawl - together in a duet. Strangely enough, the innkeeper does not seem to like the song and, without further ado, kicks them out. However, before he does, Jaskier has managed to nick a nice bottle of cask strength whiskey.
And, on this memorable Valentine's night with the silver light of the full moon reflecting from the venerable roofs of Oxenfurt, the two professors of poetry wander the cobbled streets together arm in arm, belting out one love song after the other.
Luckily, when Jaskier wakes up in his bed very late the next morning - how the heck did he even get there? - he has no memory of it whatsoever. Not even the torn half of a piece of parchment that he finds in his coat pocket rings a bell. It appears to be a kitschy love song about violets and dandelions, how very cliche! And how very fortunate that this tasteless drivel is not his handwriting. He is about to toss it into the fire the servant has lit in the fireplace, but at the last moment and for no reason at all, at least none that he is aware of, he hesitates. With a shrug of his shoulders, Jaskier puts it in the bottom drawer of his nightstand.
It is still there when, decades later, a young and thoroughly unknown bard discovers the fragment and turns it into a song. Within less than a year 'Of Dandelions and Violets' becomes the all-time number one Valentine's hit all across the continent.