a promise || jaskier x reader

Brooding

The expression on my face contorted with a speed comparable to the way light beamed through the burlap coverings that wore away from the windows they were tucked into, freeing themselves from the paned shackles. A shrill screeching echoed for the second time, as the strega collapsed away from the somewhat injured body of the aurum-eyed witcher. My eyes took a second to adjust before I was sharply yanked, slender fingers encasing my wrist with a simultaneously gentle and harming tug. 

"Marigold?" My voice trembled as I spoke mutedly to the ember-headed mage I was tucked behind. Her hand unlatched from my forearm to clap over my mouth, which I hummed against in a muffled plea. "Shut up!" She whispered harshly, and I rolled my eyes. I was always one for sarcasm and dramatics, it wasn't my fault everyone else was born with a stick up their- My thoughts were interrupted by the shuffling of the buffy man, my eyes trained to his [admittedly very recognisable due to their sheer bulk] shoulders. He was brought to his feet, and his hair flowed against the sullen collar that was caked in sludgy muck. Ew, seriously ew. 

Triss glanced between the cowering figure on the ground and the brooding chap, who slowly trudged towards her. Then she pulled me again, this time by the hand, out of the seemingly abandoned castle.

"What the fuck y/n? What were you doing in there?" Triss barked once we were safely out of earshot, and I suppose I chose to ignore the unconscious bodies of two guards that I'd trailed my eyes over whilst avoiding her tempered glare.

"Drinking tea, Triss. Baking a bloody muffin. What did it look like?! He's on a suicide mission, and he thinks he can leave me behind?! Sorry, he thinks he can leave me in Kaer Morhen?!" I blurted out, sarcastically, and Triss huffily scoffed in response.

"Might've done you some good to leave him be for once! You're constantly yapping his ear off, and mine! God, I really can't stand you-"

"Then don't, Marigold! Don't put up with me! God knows I didn't need you after you left the first time, why would I now?" The venom in my words burned away at my arrogant exterior shell, as I glared into my sister's rageful eyes. This wasn't where I pictured today going. I shook my head, both out of some sorts of disbelief and to rid my e/c gaze of the tears that bordered my waterline like an approaching army. I tugged my arm away from her loosening grasp, face whirling with turmoil as I turned my back to her and broke for the bridge. The horses whinnied, whether it was to one another or because of my hurry I didn't care to consider. I untangled Maja's reigns from those that held Roach, pulling my hood up over the loose strands of h/c that messily framed my face. The saddle nested on Maja's back was rocked as I used the horn to harshly tug myself up, my left saddlebag too full of coin to move easily. I grabbed the leather strap of my belt, hooking it onto the saddle horn with a sigh.

That was the last time I'd seen my sister in quite some time. Or the rude-yet-charmingly-quiet witcher I had come to have some envy for. How could he so leisurely stroll the Continent on his lonesome, while I depended on the presence of others like it were oxygen for my lungs? I had been stripped of all defences that night, and the tears that fell into the tight-packed snow on the crowning clasp of my cloak beneath my chin represented my future and all the hope I had for it. Lost to time, and a failed pet project at best.

The bed creaked as I tossed myself back onto my right side, h/c locks covering my flustered face. I sighed, the hot blowing air that escaped my lips disturbing the way my hair had fell. It was so hard to sleep. What made it even harder was the slow, distant footsteps that thudded up tables and across the whole of the tavern, and the voice of a man who began to tell them of his adventures......in song. My eyebrows knitted together in annoyance-I knew this artist's name, as unfortunate as that may sound. Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount of Lettenhove, or as Novigrad's cheapest inn knew him, Jaskier. His music seemed to follow me through all of my journeys, but I'd never come face-to-face with him per se. My annoyance was on more of a parasocial term, because his singing was the only time I'd hear him. I guess that's what comes with being inside all the time or constantly bathing. At least I was cleaner than the burly whoreson men who sat and drank their sorrows away with stinking mead. I slowly drifted off, the lull of the lute kind of soothing me to sleep. With a yawn that made me almost crack my skull from opening my mouth too wide, black seeped into my vision and my head dropped further into the soft embrace of the rented pillow.