via
https://ift.tt/324ljpRI don’t know when this bit’s getting published but I wanted to put it up because I just wrote it and liked it and I know this won’t be the pullquote when I put this chapter up because other stuff happens. Jaskier, on sort of deadnames and childhood trauma, and a parting.
Jaskier sighed. “You can write to me, if you like. Care of Oxenfurt University.”
“Should I address it to Jaskier, or?” Geralt tilted his head a little.
Jaskier made a face. “Jaskier should do it,” he said, “but.”
“Are there stuffy old fuddy-duddies who won’t call you by your stage name?” Geralt asked, one corner of his mouth tilting up.
“How did you guess,” Jaskier said. “And if one of them’s overseeing the correspondence…”
“Pancratz it is,” Geralt said. Jaskier must have made a face, because Geralt leaned forward and kissed him gently beside the mouth, quick and gone before Jaskier could react.
“J. A., to be sure of it,” Jaskier said. “There are… numerous Pancratzes about.”
“Hm,” Geralt said, and Jaskier understood that to be him emphatically not asking.
“Alfred,” Jaskier said. “That’s what the A is for.”
“Hm,” Geralt said again, looking at him under lowered brows.
I wasn’t asking, plain as day. Jaskier laughed.
“I know,” he said.
I know you weren’t. “It used to be a secret, who I was really, but then I wanted to publish poetry, and it just didn’t. Stay a secret.” He shrugged. “I’m over it now, Geralt. I’m old, and one can’t hold a grudge about one’s childhood forever.”
“Yes one can,” Geralt said.
“It’s not so hard to move on once they’re dead,” Jaskier said. “Once the games they were playing with you as a pawn are dissolved into gravedust, it’s possible to pick yourself up and salvage some things.” He grinned toothily. “My sister inherited while I was off pretending no one could guess who I was, and the ones who wanted it to be me have all moved on to other machinations, or died of old age. Or been murdered, probably, but as I wasn’t involved, I don’t care.”
“Is there a ballad?” Geralt asked, with another of his sardonic head-tilts.
“No,” Jaskier said, “but there is a fantastic collection of really terrible songs that were among some of my first compositions. My Father Is A Piece Of Shit was possibly the first one, but Fuck You, You Grasping Bitch, dedicated to my mother, is perhaps the pinnacle of the genre. Sometime if I’m drunk and feeling very, very poorly, I’ll treat you to a recitation.”
“Hm,” Geralt said, which was a pretty clear
no, don’t do that. Jaskier laughed at him, letting the brittleness run out of him.
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