Jaskier finds out he's a father (or he's going to be a father) ensues yennefer being jealous and maybe profoundly hurt, depending on how Jaskier reacts...
I am WEAK for good dad jaskier and yearning yennefer :’)
Their company is accosted at the gates by a girl who has anticipated their arrival, waddling close at surprising speed for one swollen so round with pregnancy. She takes immediately to batting Jaskier about the head and shoulders with the apron tugged off her person and wadded in her hands, the strings stinging like a switch.
Geralt sighs and adjusts the reins on Roachs neck to hand her off to a stableboy and waves off the perplexed guards considering stepping in. Handing off her own mare, Yennefer shares this confusion.
“What– who’s the girl?”
“Don’t even have to ask,” Geralt says, arms folding across his chest as he observes the scene. “Ex-lover. Ex-lover mother. Concubine. Love of his life. Etc.” He grimaces. “This one though… He’ll have played a tourney here oh… about nine months ago, I’d say.”
Yennefer’s eyes catch on the round of the girl’s belly.
“How many?” she asks, imagining little blue-eyed, freckled babes running amok across the Continent. The way the bard goes on, there could be one in every other scrap of a village the land over.
“I haven’t asked. More than one.”
It twists something sour in her chest.
–
The babe comes not a week later, the woman squatting to labor long through the night in her rooms on the outskirts of town.
She’s offered board for Roach in her meager stable and pallets in front room, and so Yennefer and Geralt sit together in polite silence as Jaskier helps her pace and stretch and holds her hand, leaning to wipe sweat from her brow.
Yennefer watches. He looks every part the doting father. Practiced.
The midwife switches off to take his place late in the evening, and he collapses at their sides, leaning back against Yennefer’s shoulder. He looks as exhausted as the woman.
“You’ve done this before,” she says. It’s not a question.
“Yeah… yeah once or twice.”
“And your children. You leave them fatherless?” She does not intend her words to twist so cruelly, and he startles from her side, eyes widening.
“I don’t– yen, of course not. Of course not.” His mouth twists down with a pained expression. “I send what i can… but no one wants their child to have a man like me as a father.”
“But you’re nobility. That has to count for something.”
He shakes his head.
“Almost better to the be the bastard of some dandy than a noble. Neither gets you anything, but the former’s less shameful.” He sighs, a tinge of sadness creeping into his voice. “No, I’m no father to their children unless they’re in need of me.”
He smiles, the kind that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“But perhaps this time? She’s a sweet girl. She doesn’t have anyone else. I could stay here, find local work.” He looks at the girl resting in the midwife’s arms. “This place could use a bard, I think. Could use a bit of song.”
Yennefer shifts an arm and allows him to press his forehead back down against it, letting out a quiet breath.
–
The babe comes in the quiet hours before dawn, its hair a shock of curly red and skin swarthy. The girl is straw blond and pale as milk.
“Spitting image o’ the blacksmith’s boy,” says the midwife and spits on he ground.
–
The three of them move on, Jaskier laughing at his luck, wiping the sweat off his brow with theatrical relief.
But Yennefer sees it, the way he goes quiet too quickly, stands too still. That evening, she finds him curled in one of the narrow beds at the next inn, turned in early.
She crawls in behind him, chin to his shoulderbaldes, arm around his hip.
She does not have the words for this thing between the three of them and especially not between her and the bard. But sometimes she wishes that she did.
“You would make a good father”, she says, quiet.
He lifts a hand to rest against hers on his waist.
“And you a good mother,” he says.
She breathes against the warmth of his back as night settles. She dreams of blue-eyed children cradled at her hip, tugging at her sleeves, sleeping snug beside them in the narrow bed, close and safe.
toss a coin to ur local yennskier hoe https://ko-fi.com/plantanarchy
582 notes
·
View notes