alluring {𝖌𝖊𝖗𝖆𝖑𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝖗𝖎𝖛𝖎𝖆} WATTYS 2022

chapter twenty-three

"When your eyes are red and emptiness is all you know. With the darkness fed, I will be your scarecrow."

-Bleeding Out, Imagine Dragons 

WHEN GERALT WOKE UP, HIS HAND WENT TO TOUCH AMELIA NEXT TO HIM, BUT THE BED WAS COLD. His eyes snapped open and he sat up.

Sure enough, the bed next to him was empty and unslept in. Jaskier sat on the sofa across the room, a folded letter in his hands that he was fiddling with. It looked like he hadn't slept.

"Did she get another inn?" Geralt grunted, rubbing his hands over his face. Images of her expression and tears falling out of her clear blue eyes ramming into his thoughts.

"No, no," Jaskier said simply, his voice faint and far away. "I thought you would wake up sooner." He stood and placed the folded letter on the bed.

His name was written on the front in Amelia's handwriting. 

His heart felt like it had stopped as he unfolded it.

Geralt,

You were right. I knew all along that I wasn't coming back from this trip and I should've been colder to you. I should've done something to distance myself from you.

But you just make it so hard not to love you.

With those adorable grunts you do, the simplest gestures toward me, the way you want me to feel safe, and how you can get me out of my own head... how can I not love you?

My heart is torn between you and my people, which has never happened before. But you don't need to worry, because I've gone off to Oxenfurt by myself. I didn't mean to wrap you up in all this.

I truly am sorry, Geralt.

"So this is what pain feels like," Geralt muttered and Jaskier shook his head. 

"No, that's heartbreak you're feeling, Geralt." Jaskier seemed serious and Geralt looked at him.

"She left." He growled, getting up from the bed and throwing his clothes on. "And you let her?"

"I'm not the one who drove her away, Geralt." Jaskier snapped, suddenly irritated. "I am not like most people. You hurl insults at me, but I stay by your side because I am not one to be pushed away. Amelia, her whole life has pushed people away so that she could become the ultimate sacrifice."

When Geralt didn't say anything, Jaskier scoffed, then tossed something silver to Geralt.

He looked down in his palm and there was his witcher medallion. He said nothing as he looked at the silver necklace in his palm.

"C'mon," Jaskier tossed his bag at him. "She's got at least seven hours on us. "We'll have to skip lunch to catch up with her before she actually gets to Oxenfurt."

"Jaskier," Geralt spoke and the bard looked at him. "Thank you."

The bard smiled slightly. "You two are destiny."

♘ ♘ ♘

A few hours out, Jaskier and Geralt stumbled across a scene that was gruesome and full of rage. Four men were decapitated and their heads were impaled on makeshift-stakes that were about Amelia's height.