Archive of Our Own

When he is thirteen, Julian Alfred Pankratz is told by the wind to write a song. So he just does that: he writes himself a song.

Anyone who'd heard it would say it's not the most interesting of songs. Hardly something you'd listen to and remember by the next week.

A song completely and utterly mundane. Mediocre. The work of a child. It had the rhyming pattern of a toddler's nursery rhyme and a simple melody that wouldn't exactly turn heads. It was a song by the plainest definition - a song only because it had lyrics and a tune.

The subject of the future Viscount's song itself was a lady, living next to a river bend in a tiny cottage. She had long dark hair and a nose with a small, imperfect bump at the bridge.

She's described to be tall and pretty, with light brown skin, a slender figure, and a soft chin. She has a dimpled smile with baby brown eyes to go along with them and freckles wherever you cared to look.

In Julian's song, she is hanging her freshly washed sheets and white dresses on a long rope to dry in the sun when a breeze of cold air passes her by, bringing with it floating and weightless dandelion fluff. 

The woman pauses her laundry work and looks to where the dandelion fluff came from to see a small yellow dandelion flower peeking from a patch of grass next to her laundry basket. 

She picks the flower from the bottom of it's stem and as she does so, from her peripheral vision, she catches another sight of a bright yellow dandelion flower a few yards away.

And she walks over and picks that one too.

But with every flower she picked, more seemed to appear from the corner of her eyes, a never ending supply of dandelions, mockingly yellow, appearing only when she picked the one before the next.

And like an uncontrollable impulse, she picked and picked and picked for more and more verses of Julian's song and the song ends with her picking and picking and picking.

He calls the song Pick a Flower, simple and to the point. 

When he is thirteen-and-a-half, Julian Alfred Pankratz's mother dies.

"An illness of the mind," the doctor had said to Julian's father in a hushed whisper moments after his assistants carried her body away, like whispering would keep Julian from hearing their conversation.

Like whispering would shield Julian from the sight of his mother's bloodied body being carried away in front of him.

Despite the horrid sight of blood that looked more black than red and ribs that seemed to have collapsed in on themselves, Julian found himself... unbothered by it. Like a prophecy that had finally been fulfilled. Like something completely predictable.

But it wasn't like Julian wasn't aware his mother had been becoming less and less like herself in the months that lead up to that fateful day.

It was clear something had been wrong with her for a while now.

With her violent and sudden outbursts and rampant and often irrational fears of everything around her, Julian's mother was gone before she even died. 

She was sick, and it wasn't always a visible sickness but if you cared to look hard enough the way Julian did, you'd see the sickness under the deceptively healthy lightly tanned and freckled complexion.

You'd see that something was wrong with Lady Pankratz. 

You'd have seen it when Lady Pankratz fired every last one of the Pankratz Estates' servants and groundskeepers, rambling on and on about how she knew they were planning something bad and how she couldn't prove it but she just knew, whispering to herself next to the fireplace about poison and betrayal and lying thieves and ulterior motives, convincing herself that Julian's maid had been stealing from them, despite the fact that the said maid didn't have reason to at all and had been a close family friend for a while.

You'd have seen it when Lady Pankratz refused to sleep for a week's straight because she was convinced her loving husband of nearly thirty years was going to suffocate her in her sleep. Shaking in the dead of night and creeping into Julian's room when her husband was asleep and quietly commanding Julian to pack his things quickly, quickly, before his father wakes up and kills them both.

You'd have seen it when Lady Pankratz struck her son right across the face, accusing him of poisoning her cup of tea when Julian hadn't even been the one to make her tea. (You'd have seen it when Lady Pankratz broke down in tears once she'd realized she had made the tea herself, apologizing profusely to her red cheeked son, scaring him into forgiving her.)

And you'd definitely have seen it when Lady Pankratz jumped from the third floor balcony in her nightdress with a manic smile on her face, relief obvious in her brown eyes just before her body hit the floor with a sickening crack.

Up til the end she had been picking her dandelions. One fear after another, slowly convincing herself all of them were real and rational until she convinced herself off that balcony. Hiding from made up monsters. Dying to invisible illnesses.

Picking dandelions.

Her death is tragic, but when she does eventually die, Julian feels as though it had been a long time coming, like he couldn't have done anything to stop it.

Julian would even go as far as to say that he foresaw it. 

The death of the mother does not shock the son. 

He is quiet at the funeral and allows family and friends to hug him for their comfort after reception, but before he sleeps that night, he sings his song. His song about picking dandelions.

And in the morning, he will write another.

But for now, he closes his eyes and hums. This was fate.

Julian's next song is about a man and his son, and he writes it the morning after his mother's funeral. This time, the wind does not tell him to write it. He just feels like he has to. So he does.

And there is a man and a siren and a son.

The man, a wealthy king, gives his son a single gold coin before he leaves to go fishing at the lake. Once he arrives at the lake, he sets his eyes and ears on a siren, sitting on a small island of rocks in the middle of the lake quietly singing to herself, just loud enough for the noble to hear but not understand.

The king, intrigued by the siren's song, abandons his fishing pole and gets into a boat, rowing determinedly towards the small island of rocks. He rows quickly for fear that the siren would have swam away when he got there. 

When the king gets close enough to be able to reach out to the siren, though, the siren tips over his boat and drags him down under.

Just before the song ends, the king, submerged under the water and no longer able to hear the siren's singing, snaps out of the sound induced delusion.

By the time he realizes he is about to die, it is too late to do anything about it.

The song's subject is morbid, but Julian feels right in giving it a jaunty tune and a cartoonish rhyme and he finishes it off with a title that he finds funny. 

The name of the song is ironically titled "Sailor's Delight," something that had made Julian giggle when he first came up with it. (He would later find out about misnomers when he'd leave for University. It would become his favorite literary device.)

Not weeks after writing the song, Julian's father is lost at sea. 

A meetup with a wealthy and promising family in a faraway land gone wrong. A ship consumed by fifty foot waves. A deceptively calm sky bringing forth a sudden storm that came from nowhere but was big enough to affect the landmasses miles away from the middle of the ocean where it had been happening.

Julian's father is presumed dead. His wealth is left to Julian. Everything is. Even his title, if Julian wanted it. Julian doesn't, so he allows his uncle to be the noble and settles for the title of viscount. It fits him better.

At the funeral, an empty casket is buried on Lettenhove lands. People cry to themselves but not because of their dead noble, rather the alive viscount. 

Julian is an orphan with unimaginable wealth and a knack for writing songs that seem to coincidentally predict the future.  

Despite the fact that, unlike his mother's death, his father's death was unpredictable and sudden, Julian finds himself finding familiarity in the feeling of his father's death. 

It's the same feeling as when his mother died. It feels like a prophecy fulfilled. Like having a dream you can't remember tickling the back of your mind for the entire day but when you do remember it, the feeling is pleasant. 

His father was supposed to die. His father was supposed to die when he did and Julian is relieved that his father did. Sir Pankratz is dead, but Julian knows that was supposed to happen. 

When everyone in the funeral is crying, Julian hums silently under his breath. A gaudy tune, ironically being hummed in a situation as grim as this one. Sailor's delight. 

Julian closes his eyes as they bury an empty casket. This was fate.

When he is fifteen, Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove understands. 

He's sitting under a particularly tall tree when it happens, and there's an annoying lyric-less tune replaying in his head. The tune had been there for quite a while now, but the lyrics didn't come to him as easily as other lyrics did. 

It was annoying, but Julian finds himself wanting to keep it repeating. Something felt off about today, and the sound at the back of his mind felt like something that explained why. Like the tune was a map and if he could only find the lyrics -

Julian huffs frustratedly to himself, scrunching his nose up and angrily strumming at the lute on his lap to the same tune as the one in his head. 

"For fucks sake!" Julian groans and pulls at his hair. He'd gotten into the habit of cursing after being around the men at the bar. "Get out of my head!"

And the lyrics come to him. 

So he sings. 

The title is Black Sun Princesses. 

It's a song with an easy and repeating melody, soft and slow and sweet and intimate. The first half comes off calming. 

It's about a bird, black as the night sky flying in the skies, freedom in the wind under it's wings. Overhead, it's circling over a small group of girls, playing at the field, as carefree as young girls could possibly be in a field as open as the one they were in. 

And the bird just flies and the girls play and everything is peaceful. Everything is right.

But the bird grows and it grows and it flies lower. Lower. Lower. It's shadow gets bigger. And bigger. And bigger. And eventually, it blocks out the sun with it's wings, turning the day into the night.

The girls on the field look up but see nothing. The bird with feathers as black as obsidian had completely blocked out the sun. 

The song ends. And Julian finally feels at peace.

He opens his eyes and looks up, and finds that there's no longer a sun.

His song had been sung and the day had turned into night.

There's screaming from inside the manor, no doubt from fearful and superstitious cleaning ladies, but Julian isn't afraid. 

This was supposed to happen. This was fate. 

And Julian closes his eyes and understands. His songs are prophecies given to him by Destiny.  He closes his eyes and understands.

He is fate. 

When he is eighteen and fresh out of University, Julian sings a song about a lark that meets a wolf. 

It's his vaguest song by far, shorter than the hundreds of songs that had come to him before, but Julian knew it meant more than anything he'd ever sung by far.

The Song of Wolf and Fate feels heavier than Pick a Flower, than Sailors Delight, than Black Sun Princesses. It has a gravity to it that nothing could escape. 

Julian was Fate. He came from Destiny. His songs had visions of the future, bringing forth both bad and good news. And he knew that The Song of Wolf and Fate was going to bring news bigger than the song that predicted his mother's death, his father's disappearance, and the day the sun went out.

So Julian strums his lute on his journey to Posada and sings a song about the lark born from Destiny, gifted with Fate, and the winter white wolf, determined to defy him. 

Lark, son of Destiny with songs that can see

Meets Wolf with bared teeth, blind as can be

Can listen to music but never truly hear

Lark, Destiny's puppet, your end is near

He walks on four paws, brings reverie

Julian has sung his fate, and his song cautions him about his end.

By singing his song, Julian has seen into the future. And he cannot do anything to change it.  

He lays cornflower blue eyes on his mysterious demise in a bar in Posada.

The people watching him perform are rude and stupid, and Julian wonders if they'd treat him any different if they knew his songs were prophecies. If they only knew the fantastical creatures were allusions to something much bigger than their literal meanings. 

(He takes pleasure in knowing the man who booed him and told Jaskier to "Give himself an abortion" will end this year with an unplanned surprise from his wife.)

He scoffs at the thought and rolls his eyes, catching a glimpse of striking amber ones as he does. And Julian is captivated.

After years and years of living with the gift of seeing into the inner workings of Destiny, Julian knows what fate looks like.

Sometimes, it looks like a mother being carried off in a trail of blood, sometimes it looks like a father's empty casket being lowered into the ground. Sometimes it looks like the disappearance of light in the middle of day. 

Destiny takes many faces, and Julian has seen enough of it's faces to recognize when it is at work. 

And it is at work.

There, sitting gloomily at the corner of the bar, is the Wolf to end his Fate.

No, not The Wolf - The Witcher. 

Julian's inevitable doom. 

Julian stuffs some food in his pants and saunters over to the man who was his supposed end. 

There's some fear in his heart but there is also anger and a thrill of something in his bones. He is meeting his murderer and his murderer doesn't even know.

But Julian does and that is enough.

So he challenges Destiny and flirts. 

If this man was going to be the death of him, Julian was not going down without a fight. 

He was going to make killing him as painful for the Witcher as it will be for Fate. 

He makes fun of the thought and names himself after his first prophecy. He becomes Jaskier. 

"They don't exist," the Witcher says after Jaskier pesters him into conversation.

Jaskier raises an eyebrow. "What don't exist?"

"The creatures in your song."

Jaskier bites back a laugh. "And how would you know?"

This is the start of a terrible friendship.

Toss a Coin is not a prophecy.

Jaskier knows it because he's sung enough to recognize when something has meaning or not. Toss a Coin does not have meaning at all. It's just a song Jaskier whipped out with a catchy tune and even catchier lyrics.

He was not compelled to write it because Destiny told him to. He just did because he needed a popular song if he wanted to be a traveling bard.

Despite it not having any power in the words at all, though, it becomes popular among the people, pandering to their hatred of Elves and warming them up to the idea of Witchers by creating a common enemy. 

It's success is honestly based off the people's bias against Elves, really, and Jaskier wishes that people were more resistant to obvious pandering by slandering, but alas. Humans are stupid.

Jaskier doesn't complain about what makes Toss a Coin popular though. In the end,  creating it makes traveling with Geralt a lot easier. He, as Fate, needs a little easier in his life, especially if he was going to travel with basically his destined death.

Geralt thinks the song helps his reputation among the humans so too.

Or, well, Jaskier assumes so. The big oaf is too much of a silent brute to actually say what he's thinking out loud, unless what he's thinking is an insult to Jaskier's singing. Most of the words that come out of his mouth often are just that - insults. 

Sometimes it's a snide remark hidden under a layer of sarcasm and Jaskier takes a couple seconds to register it as an insult. Sometimes, it's just a straight to the point, "This song is terrible."

Somewhere along traveling with Geralt, Jaskier thinks about how much easier it would be to kill the Witcher and avoid his own ending, but he scoffs mournfully at the idea and abandons planning murdering the White Wolf. The same way he couldn't have saved his mother from madness or father from the sea if he tried, he can't save his own skin either. 

Jaskier is living proof that Destiny exists, and Jaskier is just as much a victim of Destiny as he is a voice for it. He was going to die by Geralt's hand whether he wanted to or not.

It was his fate.

But Jaskier had grown annoyed at the inevitability of it all. So he supposed if he couldn't change it, he'd do his best to make it as unnecessarily dramatic as possible. 

So he plans his revenge on his inevitable murderer and Jaskier decides to make Geralt fall in love with him. 

To kill someone is one thing.

To kill someone you're in love with is another. 

It's the perfect trade off. 

So when Geralt barks a, "Quiet down, bard, your voice is driving me insane," across their campfire for the night, Jaskier bites back the harsh words that come to his head on instinct and instead, he smiles. 

With a sultry purr to his voice, Jaskier fondly says, "You drive me insane."

The suggestiveness is there and the flirt is obvious. It's obvious enough to catch Geralt off guard. He doesn't interrupt Jaskier's singing for the rest of the night.

"I'm cold, Geralt," Jaskier whines childishly as he and Geralt make their way to some other village for some other contract to kill some other monster.

Irritatingly, Geralt stays silent. Jaskier scrunches his nose and increases his volume. 

"How do you expect me to play for our meals with my performances if my fingers would all have been victim to frostbite by the time we get there?"

A good yard in front of him, Geralt just grunts. But he understands that Jaskier won't stop pestering him unless he replies, so with an annoyed voice, Geralt does. 

"Maybe you'd be less cold if you'd actually closed your doublet the way it's meant to be closed."

Jaskier rolls his eyes. "Be reasonable," he scoffs. "How do I capture the attention of potential suitors if I don't dress like I feel?"

"You want them to know you feel cold?" Geralt asks.

The urge to punch the Witcher for his snarky (and honestly, unnecessary) comments is strong. 

"Not how I feel physically, " Jaskier barks. "Emotionally."

Geralt snorts. "And what would an open doublet tell them?"

Jaskier smirks. He takes his lute from where it's strapped on his back and strums a single string.

"That I'm more than ready to be dicked down at any point and time."

Geralt almost trips on his feet.

"There's a blanket somewhere in the saddlebags on the left."

Jaskier catches eagerly up to Roach and grins.

Jaskier knows he's tempted fate when one night, he doesn't have to complain about being cold. 

Geralt is setting up his bedroll a few feet away from the fire and Jaskier has his palms opened, facing the flames. The night is cold, and it does the personification of fate no good when his hands are too frozen to play his lute.

From across the fire, Geralt grunts out a questioning, "Cold?"

Jaskier has to snort at that. The weather makes him bitter. He is snappier than he usually is and he is too cold to care. "Did the shivering give it away?"

 "Hm." Geralt gives him a once over, concern in his eyes.

A silence.

"You're quieter tonight."

"Hands," Jaskier explains, raising his palms higher so Geralt can see how white they'd gone from the cold. "It hurts to play when your fingers are numb."

Geralt just stares at him for a while, before he scoots over to his right and pats the extra space on his bedroll invitingly. It's an offer, an invite. A gesture. 

And Jaskier smiles and knows.

Geralt is in love with him.

Wordlessly, Jaskier rises from his spot across the fire and sets himself down next to Geralt. The Witcher tenses up when Jaskier gets closer and leans his head on Geralt's shoulders, but after a moment, his muscles relax and the taller of the two pulls a blanket over both their bodies.

"Warmer?" Geralt asks, voice gruffer but at the same time, softer than usual. 

Jaskier chuckles. "Yes. Thanks."

After a comfortable pause, Geralt nods, tense.

"Okay. Good."

From his peripheral, Jaskier catches a glimpse of Geralt's eyes, shifting down to look at his hands, color returning back to them thanks to the warmth.

"Would you like me to play for you?" Jaskier mutters. 

There's a sparkle in Geralt's eyes that say yes, but he maintains his ever neutral expression and just shrugs. "If you want."

Jaskier rolls his eyes and laughs. "Would it kill you to say you like hearing me sing?"

"No. But your ego getting bigger would give me a migraine."

Jaskier snorts and pushes the Witcher playfully as he pulls his lute from over his shoulder. He strums a couple strings in a boring, imperfect little melody and he laughs as he sings a joking little song.

Geralt says he hates my singing but I know he loves me so

One day his words will cut my throat and my voice will leave, oh woe

He'll miss the sound and search around for a cure to save my head

But all he'll find is a nasty old witch and he'll love her instead

The song ends with rough laughter from Geralt but by the end of the joking little tune, all Jaskier feels is dread.

Numb, cold dread. 

Jaskier recognizes a prophecy when he hears one. And he heard one.

Sometime in the night, Geralt had fallen in love with him.

Sometime in the night, Jaskier had realized he'd loved Geralt a long time ago.

But only Jaskier knew this story was a tragedy. 

For now, the offspring of Destiny pretends Destiny does not exist and allows himself to indulge in the idea that this story was one of love and not of loss. 

He leans his head on Geralt's shoulders and feels Geralt's arm on his own shoulders. He closes his eyes and indulges in the fantasy that Destiny did not exist.

They head to Cintra the next morning.

They go their separate ways after Cintra.

Against all odds, Jaskier has fallen in love with Geralt, and the thought absolutely terrifies him.

He berates himself for doing it somewhat, a frustration that can only be directed at himself stemming from the fact that, despite knowing Geralt was going to be the end of him, he allowed himself to fall in love anyway.

The plan was never meant to be to become infatuated with the man destined to kill him. It was meant to have his murderer fall in love with him, not the other way around, for fuck's sake.

His song adds another layer of complication on his shoulders as well. The one he'd made up on the spot as a joke from the night he realized what he'd gotten himself into. The one from the night he realized he was in love.

Jaskier feels like one of those prophets in those ancient scrolls he used to read back in the University of Oxenfurt. Those prophets of old cultures and religions blessed by their gods to see into the future and had gone mad because of it. Gifted with the curse of sight.

Oracles that were never meant to be oracles.

It's not like how he would die just popped into Jaskier's head the night he fell in love with Geralt, though, and Jaskier supposes the fact he knew Geralt was going to kill him before he fell in love was some sort of sick joke Destiny was pulling.

He'd always known Geralt was to be his demise. It had been whispered to him by the voice of Destiny years ago, before they had even met. Knowing he travels with his murderer didn't bother Jaskier.

But more information as to how Geralt ends him makes Jaskier scared.

It's the second line of the song that bothers him the most.

One day his words will cut my throat and my voice will leave, oh woe.

Jaskier shudders at the thought.

He thinks of what it means literally. Would Geralt slit his throat with his silver sword? He thinks of what it could mean metaphorically.

He thinks and thinks and thinks himself into a frenzy until the paranoia becomes too much and the morning after Cintra, he leaves with a Countess without a word to Geralt of where he is going.

He becomes Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove and avoids Destiny for a while.

Jaskier replays the lyrics in his head every night before he goes to sleep in the Countess's manor, and no matter how many times he tries to deny it, the anxiety of what the words could mean gets to him like cold air through the opening in a blanket.

Six months into his admittedly cowardly hiding, Jaskier sees the similarities between the situation he had gotten himself into and the last days of his mother.

How she isolated herself from anyone who tried to care for her because of fear, just like how Jaskier was isolating himself now.

How she let her anxiety become her.

A small voice at the back of Jaskier's head finds it fitting how he's mimicking the demise of his mother so well. He had, after all, named himself after her prophecy the moment he met Geralt of Rivia.

He laughs at the thought of picking his own little dandelions and briefly plays with the idea of letting himself continue picking. Perhaps a death from a balcony would hurt less than what Geralt could do.

But another voice reminds Jaskier that he shouldn't fall to his own prophecies. And Jaskier thinks that, as the voice of Fate, he should thrive with the cards Destiny deals him rather than crumble under it's merciless gaze. He was born with this gift for a reason, and he refuses to let it become his downfall.

So he leaves the Countess and seeks out Geralt.

He leaves the safety of being Julian and seeks out Destiny by being Jaskier.

And maybe, by doing so, he avoids picking another dandelion.

It's going well until it isn't, and he is given a taste of inevitability.

There are words and there is pain in his throat and there is a witch who has the cure. And there is heartbreak and a pain much worse than physical and Jaskier has seen this all before.

And he's seeing it again now, powerless.

He passes out and wakes back up and there's the witch of his song, only she isn't some old lady with forty cats and green, warty complexion like Jaskier had meant when he sung that song as a joke.

She is pretty and powerful and Geralt, as prophesied, falls in love with her instead.

Jaskier regains his voice. His throat is healed. His song is returned.

But Geralt no longer loves him.

And he wishes Geralt had killed him earlier. He wishes he were dead.

"There are a lot of things I'd give to be blissfully unaware," Jaskier whispers to Geralt long after the campfire had gone out, long after the sun has set.

Geralt's gruff voice replies with a flippant, "You already are blissfully unaware, bard."

And Jaskier rolls over his bedroll to face where Geralt is laid down on the ground some distance to his left. His voice isn't as steady as it usually is, and if Geralt notices the uncertainty, he doesn't bother to show it.

"No one is, I think," Jaskier continues. "Not when we know Destiny exists."

Geralt peeks an eye open and sighs. "Destiny doesn't exist."

Wolf with bared teeth, Jaskier recites in his head, closing his eyes and remembering the first song he'd made up about the man laying next to him. Blind as can be.

Sorrow.

"And what would you do if it did?"

Geralt hums. "What do you mean?"

Jaskier tucks himself tighter into his blankets and frowns. He takes a breath before elaborating.

"What if Destiny had a face? What if there was a body to the being? If Destiny were a man then what... what would you do then?"

There's a pause. A disinterested yawn. Shifting of blankets as Geralt turns on his side to face away from Jaskier.

"I'd kill him."

Jaskier takes a sharp inhale of breath, and he feels like he's already dead. "Okay."

"How much do you value your life, Jaskier?"

It's Yennefer that speaks to him this time, sitting next to the bard on a bar stool as they wait for Geralt to stop speaking with the barman for a contract.

Jaskier is much too sober for this conversation, so he rolls his eyes and takes a big gulp from his bottle. The alcohol burns his throat the same way Yennefer's name leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

"I don't have a price if that's what you're asking." He makes sure to lace his voice with as much annoyance as possible. "And if I did... hm, darling, you couldn't afford me."

Yennefer snorts. "Gods, you are full of yourself, aren't you?"

Cue indignant squawk. Cue involuntary blush. Cue red-faced anger.

"Fuck off."

The sorceress laughs, a laugh that shouldn't at all be that perfect considering the sharp cruelty she displays towards Destiny's Oracle.

"Your life, Jaskier," Yennefer reminds, bringing them back to the sentence that brought upon this conversation in the first place. "How much do you value it?"

Jaskier groans into his alcohol.

"Doesn't fucking matter, now does it?" He swallows his drink and looks pathetically to where Geralt is stood, still speaking to the barman. "Always going to be some asshole who thinks they should end it."

Yennefer gives him a curious expression and nods, like the answer is acceptable to her standards. Like it's some sort of test and Jaskier has passed it.

And she stares at Jaskier for a few moments more before she sighs and stands and walks away.

There is a tune stuck in his head again, popping up with occasional words that tuck themselves into place in the lyrics Jaskier creates.

There is love in his heart and a prophecy playing at his soul.

The feeling is the same as when he predicted the day of the Black Sun, only lighter, more recognizable. Having been exposed to prophecies over the years has warmed the face of Fate to singing more into creation.

And as Jaskier waits at the bottom of a steep hill for his Witcher to come back, accompanied by two strangers and strumming on his lute, he knows Destiny is playing around, whispering lyrics into his ear.

Jaskier scrunches his nose at the words dancing in his head and turns to consult the men with him.

"What fits better, do you think?" He inquires, and he sings to the tune of his work in progress, "Are you feeling 'gorgeous garroter' or 'lovely garroter?' Hm. I'll have to work on that."

He sings the lines again. Yeah. He'll have to work on that.

Jaskier meets Borch and he feels like he has another part of a prophecy. They meet up with Yennefer again and it's the same feeling as a song being formed. And Borch and Geralt and Yennefer are walking the same path up a mountain and a crescendo in Jaskier's head echoes and echoes and intensifies until there is an orchestra that only Jaskier can hear.

Somewhere along the way, the sound of Jaskier's heartbeat is drowned out by a violin solo.

The song is Her Sweet Kiss.

It might be the last prophecy Jaskier ever sings.

"If life could give me one blessing it would be to take you off my hands!"

Oh.

There it is.

His mother has just hit the ground. News of his father's disappearance at sea has just been delivered. The bird has blocked out the sun.

Fate is dead where he stands.

The solitary walk down the mountain leaves Jaskier's feet numb and the memory of Geralt's accusations leave him even number.

He walks until he is off the mountain.

He walks until he is so far away, the mountain has disappeared behind him.

He walks and walks and walks and when he can't anymore, he collapses.

There, on the hard ground where he collapsed, Jaskier gives himself time to look at where he has walked.

He finds himself in the middle of a forest clearing.

The sun has just reached it's highest peak and it beams down on Jaskier's pathetic face through the cracks of the leaves above him. There is moss where his fingertips feel the floor and when Jaskier's chest rises and falls, the leaves crushed under his back makes a satisfying crunch, muffled but still there.

The wind is warm and steady and the breeze carries the songs of birds and the whispers of the trees. And Jaskier lies smack dab on the middle of it all.

A broken prophet. The spitting image of the burdens of Destiny.

Jaskier closes his eyes. He hears the trickling of a stream a little ways off and if he focuses on feeling hard enough, Jaskier thinks he feels his eyes form their own little streams.

The light of the sun makes the prophet's eyelids glow a painful bright red. He keeps them closed.

And eventually, he falls asleep.

Time blurs together.

Jaskier spends his days in the same position in the forest clearing as he had been in when he first collapsed there. He sleeps and he wakes and he looks at the sky.

Never does he talk, never does he move, and not a single hint of a song goes through his head.

Most of the time he is asleep. Sometimes, he is awake long enough to see the seasons change.

He wakes up one day and the leaves are green and there is a small layer of frost melting on his skin. He wakes up another day and the leaves are orange as can be. At some point in time when rain falls on his face and the ground is muddy and gross, Jaskier wonders why he is not dead yet.

In the winter, Jaskier realizes he can no longer sing. He can no longer feel the pull of Destiny. He is cold and he recites The Song of Wolf and Fate.

Lark, Destiny's puppet, your end is near.

And with sorrow, the little lark understands he was never destined to die. His prophecies were. He falls asleep to his destiny: the end to his songs.

One day, Jaskier has the energy to raise his head just a little bit and he sees his lute, untouched for however many seasons now, just staring at him, sat near his feet. He feels no pull towards the instrument and he only lays his head down again.

There are no prophecies here.

And he sleeps. And wakes. And looks at the sky.

At some point, he opens his eyes and the sky lights up red. The world around the lark fills with smoke.

Jaskier just closes his eyes again and when he opens them, the ground is nothing more than ash. He takes it as his cue to leave.

So he wakes. He stands. He walks.

Voiceless and rid of the gift of prophecy, Jaskier walks.

Jaskier pulls on a string of his lute.

The string breaks and leaves behind a sour note.

Jaskier straps the lute behind him again.

He continues to walk.

The world is quieter than usual.

He hums to fill the noise.

Where there should be a hum, there is only silence.

He stops trying to hum and walks in silence.

He stops next to a river and does his best to summon a prophecy.

He does his best to think up a song, any song as long as it had power.

Destiny ignores his effort.

For the first time in Jaskier's life, he does not see into the future.

For the first time in Jaskier's life, there is uncertainty. He goes to the last place he's ever felt certain in.

"Julian?"

Jaskier keeps his eyes focused on his mother's grave stone. His mind wanders and he wonders, if he opened her casket, would all her bones be as shattered as he remembered?

"Julian, is that you?"

He turns his attention to his father's and thinks about the empty casket six feet under. He thinks about if all his bones are scattered around the sea floor or if they were kept in the same area. In the captain's cabin in the remains of a ship somewhere deep underwater.

"Melitele's tits, it is you!"

He feels his uncle's hands grip his shoulders. He keeps his gaze on the gravestones. Remembers what it feels like to be certain. Realizes he feels anything but.

"Gods, you look horrible. Let's get you inside."

Back in the Pankratz estate and a pampered Viscount once more, Jaskier writes a song. He does his best to try and give it meaning. But in the end, after hours of working, it is just a song. A normal song.

It is not a prophecy.

He tries again, and again, after hours of coming up with lyrics and notes, it turns out to be another normal song.

After the seventeenth non-prophecy, Jaskier stops trying.

He comes to terms with the fact that he has lost Destiny's gift.

There are no more futures for him to sing. No more prophecies for him to speak into existence. Everything that had ever made Jaskier who he was... was gone.

He sleeps.

"Fix me," Jaskier whispers, and he hopes Destiny is listening. "I'm broken."

"No, dearest." He's asleep. His mother is visiting him in his dreams. She stands tall and slender with light brown skin and a freckled complexion. Her hair is long and dark and none of her bones are in the wrong place. "You're human."

He knows it is a dream, but he can't help but indulge it. He speaks to his mother, or rather, the memories of he has of his mother all put together to create a version of her in Jaskier's clouded little head.

"I think I've dug my grave, mother."

She hums, understanding, and her warm hands caress Jaskier's cheek. "Well, will you lie in it?"

"I don't want to."

"That's the beauty of it. You don't have to." Lady Pankratz smiles and she feels like coming home.

"I've lost it, mother." Jaskier's voice cracks. "I've lost my voice."