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lesdemonium · 4 years

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I’d Be the Choiceless Hope Chapter 10

Ship: Geraskier Word count: 29146 (total) Chapter: 10/16 Summary:

“Such a nice, beautiful sound,” the fae crooned. “If only he were this way always.”

Julian’s mother stood up. She claimed she was prepared to stop the fae, to protect her baby, but in Julian’s darkest moments he doubted this part of the story. His mother loved him, of that he had no doubt, but she had been young and weary, and even years later, she couldn’t quite get the twinge of exhaustion out of her eyes when she recalled Julian’s infancy. Even if she had been keen on protecting him, the fae was too close, too fast, too set on his plan.

“A gift, for the new mother,” the fae continued. He leaned a hand in to stroke Julian’s cheek. “I give you the gift of obedience.”

As a baby, Jaskier was visited by a fae, who gifted Jaskier’s mother with Jaskier’s obedience. As Jaskier grew older, the “gift” became more of a curse.

Additional tags: AngstAngst with a Happy EndingHeavy AngstUnrequited LoveNot Actually Unrequited LoveAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceCanon EraNot Canon CompliantCursed Jaskier | DandelionAlternate Universe - Ella Enchanted FusionCurse of ObedienceRape/Non-con ElementsImplied/Referenced Rape/Non-conJaskier | Dandelion Whump

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They stole away early in the morning, before the sun even crested over the horizon. It was so early, the estate was quiet. Even the cooks hadn’t yet risen to prepare breakfast.

Geralt and Jaskier moved silently through the house, lest they wake anyone, and even Roach seemed to understand the need for stealth, as she let them lead her away without so much as a sniff. They didn’t speak, and hardly even breathed, until they were safely hidden beneath the canopy of the forest.

“What are we meant to be looking for?” Jaskier asked, and though he knew they were at least a mile away from the estate, he still kept his voice low. The sun was just beginning to shine light, its rays scattered by the branches and leaves around them.

“Signs of fae activity. My medallion will vibrate when we’re near, and we’ll see… flowers. Mushrooms. Things will be growing just a bit too uniformly to be an accident.” Geralt shrugged, and he stopped at a low-hanging branch. “We will need to go deeper. We’ll leave Roach here.”

Jaskier nodded. He could still see the faint outline of Lettenhove’s walls on the horizon, but they were far enough that there was no chance of anyone stumbling upon the mare. She would be safe, and have plenty to munch on as she waited. Jaskier rubbed a hand over her neck and she snorted dismissively at him.

As they searched, Geralt would bark out instructions every so often.

“You’ll need to be polite, but you don’t want to thank them for anything, or they’ll take that as a sign you are now in their debt,” he said, and Jaskier nodded.

“If they offer you anything, you won’t want to accept it. Not food, drink, clothes, or anything else.” Jaskier hummed in return.

“They like music, and bards especially. They might ask you to play for them. It’s a trick. They’ll use it to trap you.”

It was comforting, really. Jaskier had no idea what to expect, and it was a relief that Geralt did. It seemed to bring Geralt some comfort as well, being able to pass on information to Jaskier. Jaskier could see the tense lines of Geralt’s shoulders, the way his muscles were flexing needlessly and his jaw was working. Geralt was nervous.

Jaskier pressed a hand to Geralt’s back, between his shoulder blades. Geralt looked at Jaskier curiously, but Jaskier only smiled back at him. He kept his hand there, though, until he felt the tension ease, just a little, from Geralt’s muscles.

They kept looking. It took hours of carefully combing through the trees until finally, finally , Geralt’s medallion began to vibrate. The sun was high in the sky and Jaskier was beginning to feel hunger, but he pushed the feeling away in favor of scouring the ground for signs of fae activity.

“Geralt, what about that?” Jaskier asked.

He pointed at the line of flowers and mushrooms, a few meters ahead of them. The wildflowers were beautiful, all purples and blues and pinks and so much green, interrupted here and there with little sprouts of white mushrooms. The flowers were in clumps, some dragging out as wide as a meter, but every clump ended abruptly in a line poised between two large, thick-trunked trees. The line was too straight, too clean to be an accident.

Jaskier turned his attention to Geralt, and looked at his medallion pointedly. Jaskier could just barely see it vibrating. Geralt nodded, and wrapped a hand around his medallion. The witcher took a step forward, but before Jaskier could follow, he threw out a hand to stop him.

“Jaskier, I don’t think this is a--”

“How do I get through, Geralt?” Jaskier asked. He touched Geralt’s arm, lightly pushing it down, and stared at him beseechingly. “I have to do this.”

Geralt hesitated, searching Jaskier’s face for any sort of crack, but Jaskier knew there was nothing there but steely resolve. He had to do this. Geralt nodded, then took Jaskier’s hand, lacing their fingers together and stepping toward the flowers.

“Geralt, no, you can’t--”

“I will not let you face this alone, Jaskier,” Geralt interrupted. His tone was decided, final, and he didn’t bother looking at Jaskier before he led them to the flowers. He stopped just before the line, and took a deep breath. “We should just need to walk through, and we’ll be in the Feywild. Are you certain you want to do this?”

Jaskier didn’t answer him, there wasn’t any point. Instead he took a step forward, taking Geralt with him.

It happened so suddenly, Jaskier couldn’t even note the moment they passed through the plane. It only felt like taking a step forward, but suddenly his surroundings were different. The trees were larger, blocking out all sun, and their leaves and vines tendrilled down around him. The floor was littered with bright, impossibly bright flowers, many of colors Jaskier couldn’t name, and was sure he had never seen before. There was a living quality to everything around him, in a way that the forest on their own plane did not possess.

Before them was an enormous, grand archway. Thin branches wove together to form the frame, and green, blue, and purple leaves clung all along the arch and hung down. Jaskier longed to touch it all. He felt the immense need to spread this grove’s beauty to his fingers, because his eyes alone could not take it.

He didn’t. Instead, he led them through the archway, and into the court, toward the music he heard in the distance.

The court itself was… unfathomable. Jaskier tried to keep his eyes forward, to focus on the fae in the center of the large, open grove--the queen?--but it was hard not to notice the beautiful, otherworldly creatures around him. Each one was a varying degree of human-like, but each one was ethereal.

All sound stopped as Jaskier and Geralt stepped through the archway into the grove. Even Jaskier, who flourished under attention, found himself resisting the urge to shrink back into himself. He felt the weight of hundreds of eyes and his steps stuttered, but he and Geralt continued on until they were before the queen.

She sat on a majestic throne of vines and bark, and though it had been carved into a seat, Jaskier was sure even her throne was as alive as anything else here. She looked inhuman--with large ears extending past her shoulders to a point, and long, swooping horns before a crown of flowers and leaves. Her face was pointed, from her chin, to her nose, to the edges of her eyes, a sharp elegance that should have made her look cruel or monstrous, but instead made her look striking and imposing and beautiful. Interest burned in the deep, deep green of her eyes, and Jaskier understood, immediately, how anyone could fall under her spell. If Jaskier wasn’t so clear on his goal, and his hand held so tightly by his witcher, Jaskier was certain he would have fallen, too.

“It is not often we get a human or a witcher here of their own volition, much less both at once,” the queen mused.

Jaskier fell into a sweeping bow, though he did not let go of Geralt’s hand. A half-breath later, he felt Geralt bend as well. When he rose, he put on his most charming smile.

“It is an honor to make your acquaintance,” Jaskier said. “Your court is beautiful; I am but a humble bard, and even with my skill in poetry, I do not believe I could capture the true nature of its beauty. Or yours, for that matter.”

The queen smiled, seemingly satisfied, and she raised a hand to her face. Her pointed fingers, almost talon-like, scraped gracefully along her cheek. “I am Ignea, Queen of this court. You,” she pointed a finger at Jaskier, “want something. What is it?”

Jaskier bowed his head again, if only to buy time to consider his words. “I am looking for a fae named Lazuli.”

The fae around them murmured amongst themselves, and Ignea’s eyebrows rose high on her face.

“What could you want with Lazuli?” she asked.

“Lazuli has given me a gift. I wish to return it.”

The murmuring around them grew louder. Geralt’s hand squeezed Jaskier’s, maybe in warning, but Jaskier did not tear his eyes away from the queen. Not until she held up a hand, silencing the chattering around them, and tilted her head pointedly to her right.

From the shadows stepped another fae. One Jaskier had seen so many times in his dreams, he was half convinced he was dreaming now . His features were just as pointed as his queen’s, but while her skin was in hues of gold and browns, Lazuli was painted with blues and greens. What little light there was reflected off his face in a way that seemed almost metallic. There were no whites to his eyes, only a deep, deep black.

“Lazuli,” Jaskier said. He had intended to say so much more. He had a speech planned and everything, all the things he would want to say if he ever came face to face with the fae. As he looked upon Lazuli, though, his voice failed. All he could do was stare as the fae came closer.

“I remember you,” Lazuli said. His voice was deep, musical, a rumbling baritone that cut through the silence like a song. “You wailed so loud, I could hardly think. All hours of the night and day. You ran your mother ragged.”

Jaskier swallowed, the muscles in his jaw working hard to clench his teeth at the mention of Jaskier’s mother. “You made me obedient,” Jaskier answered.

Lazuli nodded. “Your mother begged me to take you. I only wanted you to stop, but she wanted you gone.”

Jaskier shook his head. “No, that’s not--she told me--she said she tried to stop you. That you made me obedient so you wouldn't hear me anymore.” His voice sounded weak even to his own ears. Had his mother tried to give him to the fae?

“Humans lie,” Lazuli snarled, and the other fae in the court voiced their displeasure, snarling incoherently at Jaskier. Jaskier glanced around at them, but the angry cacophony didn’t seem directed at him so much, as humans in general.

Queen Ignea held up her hand again, and silence overtook the grove once more.

“She brought you to the forest, placed you in a faery circle. She begged for someone to come, to take you, and I came. I don’t take infants, particularly not ones who cry as you did,” Lazuli said.

Lazuli’s words made Jaskier feel hollow. Still, he focused on Lazuli’s inky black eyes, his face betraying no emotion.

“Obedience was a compromise.”

“She lied to me,” Jaskier breathed.

Lazuli’s smile was cruel. “You lie as she does.”

Jaskier blinked, but there was no point in arguing with the fae. He was right. How else had he survived this long, but by lying at every chance he could? How many half-truths had he told to avoid his curse? Jaskier built himself a home of deception and misdirection.

“My mother is dead,” he said instead.

“And now you are here to have her wishes undone.”

Lazuli was amused. His lips stayed quirked in that cruel smile, and a glimmer of humor shone in his dark eyes. Jaskier nodded.

“I do not take back my gifts, human. Why should I make an exception for you?” Lazuli asked.

“My life is not my own. At best, I am an accidental captive of other humans who would have me serve them. At worst, I am enslaved to their whims. My mother has trapped me with her lies and her cruelty. I wish to be free, for the first time in my life, to be my own person. I ask that you do not punish me for my actions as an infant, or the lies of my mother. Were we not both victims to her?” Jaskier asked, and though his hands shook, his voice was steady.

Something softened in Lazuli’s face.

“Humans lie,” Lazuli repeated, and though he pointed an accusing finger at Jaskier, this time he did not snarl. The court did not murmur in agreement. In fact, the grove seemed still around him. “You lie as she did.”

“She gave me no choice. Lying and tricks are all I have.”

Lazuli seemed to consider this. He stepped closer to Jaskier, and Jaskier did not move under his scrutiny. Lazuli circled him first, then circled Geralt. Geralt was just as stiff as Jaskier, and his grip remained firm on Jaskier’s hand. Lazuli stopped in front of Geralt, examining the witcher’s face as his head tilted to the side, and Geralt met his eye. Lazuli’s face broke into a wide, toothy grin.

“This one is yours,” Lazuli said, his face flicking back to Jaskier. “And still you lie.”

Jaskier’s mouth went dry. He tried, in vain, to rewet his lips, to speak, but Lazuli cut him off with a hand as soon as Jaskier’s mouth finally opened to speak.

“You will break the gift yourself.” Jaskier wanted to argue, but Lazuli’s hand was still raised. He had studied all he could of Seelie Court rules, and none of them implied that interruption was untoward, but Jaskier wasn’t willing to take a chance on that. “Tell your truths, and you will never be compelled to again.”

Jaskier’s mouth opened again, and he wanted to press more, to ask Lazuli what truths he meant , but Lazuli turned on his heel and disappeared back into the grove. The stillness ended around them, and once again Jaskier could hear the chattering of the court’s fae.

Ignea stood and strode toward them, and Jaskier could still clearly read the interest on her face. Her fingers reached out and the talon-like ends trailed across Jaskier’s cheek. They were not sharp, Jaskier was surprised to find.

“You have a beautiful face, and I suspect a beautiful voice. I would have you grace my court with your music,” Queen Ignea said, and Jaskier’s blood ran cold.

“You flatter him,” Geralt interrupted. Ignea’s eyes cut to the witcher curiously, clearly delighted that he was finally speaking. “Has he not been put through enough? He has been entertainment enough for the humans; do not ask it of him for your court.”

Ignea’s lips quirked in a small smile and she turned her attention to Geralt, though her fingers trailed down his chest rather than his face. “I see. He is yours, as well, mighty Witcher.” She tapped a finger against Geralt’s chest, just over his slowly beating heart, then drew away, back to her throne. Ignea sat herself upon it and flicked her fingers dismissively. “You may leave the way you came, before I am tempted to keep you both.”

Jaskier was glad for Geralt’s steady presence beside him, leading him out of the court and through the crossroads again. He moved as if he was in a trance, just barely managing to keep one foot in front of the other. The journey back felt longer, as if they had to traverse miles before finding the exit, and perhaps they had. Or, perhaps, it was simply an illusion sent to confuse Jaskier and allow the queen to keep him.

Still, at Geralt’s lead, they found themselves back in their own plane, stepping over the wildflowers at the entrance to the crossroads. It was dark now, though Jaskier still was unsure how long they had spent in the Feywild. Had it been minutes, or hours? It didn’t seem to matter, but Jaskier still found himself unsettled.

Geralt led them far away from the crossroads in silence. They returned to where they had tied up Roach, and Geralt led them farther still, until Jaskier could no longer see the walls of Lettenhove in the distance, and Geralt could no longer feel the thrum of magical, fae activity. The moon was high in the sky before they finally made camp, and Geralt barely had their bedrolls laid out before Jaskier was collapsing onto one.

Their camp was set up solely by Geralt as Jaskier curled his arms around his legs and stared. When Geralt joined Jaskier, Jaskier pressed his face into Geralt’s chest and let out a shuddering breath. He went boneless against his witcher, and Geralt lowered them both to the ground. Only once Geralt’s arms were safely wrapped around Jaskier’s body did Jaskier finally allow himself to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

read chapter 11

#geraskier #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #gerlion #geraskier fanfiction #geraskier fanfic #my writing

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satorisa · 7 years

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To celebrate over 100 notes on my Ignea oneshot, have another one-shot that takes place during the beginning of Chapter 7. Mostly follows Noctis, Prompto and Ignis, but I do hope you still enjoy it nonetheless!

Ignis loved feeling the breeze tousle his hair so long as he wasn’t relegated to the back seat of the Regalia. In those situations, it felt like a maelstrom buffeting his styled hair out of its firm yet flexible shape, an omen heralding his impending death.

And on that particular day, exacerbated by the absence of his back-seat neighbor either snoozing away or reading, he was sure that he was, in fact, going to die.

Oof.

His seatbelt knocked the wind out of him as Noctis, infamous for his sharp turns that came without warning, took a left onto a particularly gravelly road.

“Sorry, Ignis.”

“No need to apologize,” the older man grumbled. “I’m glad that you’ve taken an interest in using the road less traveled; however, I do advise that you slow down before all this bouncing knocks my glasses off.”

Prompto snickered from the shotgun before positioning his camera, taking bursts of snapshots as they whizzed by. The calming hum of the engine and distant ebb and flow of the water by the shore gave way to the topic—abandoned earlier because of Noctis’ god awful driving—at hand of obtaining the mythril and dealing with Gladio’s sudden departure, only to be forgotten once more with another outburst from Prompto demanding to take a picture by the Vesperpool.

“Can it wait for Gladio?” Ignis mused.

“And miss a shot like this? No way! It’s the big guy’s fault he went AWOL.”

Noctis easily pulled into an open space, half-enclosed by moss covered rocks, by the out of place Chocobo meter. The men filed out before following a worn path between two of the rocks, with Noctic silently taking the lead, Prompto oohing and aahing behind his lens, the main purpose of their mission immediately lost to him, while Ignis rounded out the back, avoiding the patches of wet ground.

They made it to the shore, polishing off a herd of Sahagin to clear out the area before Prompto set up the camera. Compared to when they had first left the capital, the young man had certainly become more efficient at setting up and taking down the trifold since the whole ordeal took less that fifteen minutes including Prompto fussing over the batch of photos until he found the perfect shot. (The first time they had done this, out in the sandy and rocky expanse of Leide, the tripod had toppled precariously before falling several times. Luckily, the camera survived, but they wasted so much daylight for one picture. And don’t get Ignis started on the incident in Duscae. How the camera survived that was beyond them. Really, Duscae’s lush greenery was a sight to behold indeed, but there was far too much water for him to warrant returning if he were on vacation.)

And now that they had gotten the sight-seeing out of the way, Noctis called the Chocobos, and they strode around to find the mythril. Ignis hoped, feeling the breeze blow through his hair, that this was an easy retrieval mission because, honestly, it would at least give him some semblance of control.

When he saw that familiar car parked in front of the entrance to some kind of ruin, Ignis had half a mind to trample over it with his Chocobo because my god, of course this situation couldn’t get any worse. But he stayed his ground, merely looking at the rather cute, vintage car with derision.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Noctis remarked.

“Does this guy have anything better to do with his time than, like, talk us in the middle of Mosquito-ville?” Prompto smacked his arm and groaned. “Of COURSE he’s here! He’s practically mayor of these bloodsuckers!”

“Didn’t I tell you to put on bug spray before we left earlier?” Ignis asked, playing into the light-hearted conversation.

“But that stuff stinks! I can’t live with myself smelling like it!”

“Plug up your nose, then,” Noctis suggested with a sly grin. Prompto groaned yet again before smacking his other arm, marring his slightly tanned skin with a splotch of red. “Well then, Ignis, what now?”

“We approach cautiously,” he answered, getting off his trusty steed. Ignis rubbed the head of his Chocobo before shooing it off, and it disappeared into the wilderness as a streak of yellow.

“Do we gotta leave them?” Prompto pouted.

“Would you rather they get into harm’s way?”

The young man, ever full of discontent, dismounted his own Chocobo before reluctantly sending it off. Noctis had done the same, albeit not so disinclined, and the group walked through the arch nearby and into the swampy waters.

“It’s getting into my boots!”

“Prompto!” Ignis hissed. “Silence is a virtue and, as of right now, a necessity!”

The water was getting into his shoes as well, squishing in between his toes and the soles of his feet. With each step, the mud pulled him in, and the murky water had seeped through the hem of his pants, crawling upward until it had gotten before his knee. Any longer in this state and even Ignis, paradigm of composure, would lose it.

And so, in a begrudging silence, they trudged on with Noctis, ever-present at the front, struggling to get through the terrain with his limp leg. Prompto had forgotten about his discomfort by coming to his best friend’s aid, helping the slightly disabled young man whenever he had gotten stuck. And Ignis, as always, rounded out the back, directing his attention to their surroundings to get his mind off his soiled shoes and protect the other two in case Ardyn decided to strike when they were at their most vulnerable.

“You…”

Hearing Noctis’ voice, Ignis snapped his head forward to see Ardyn off in the distance with that disgusting smile on his face. What the hell did that smarmy bastard have in store now?”

He had never expected, under any circumstances, to come face to face yet again with the woman that nearly killed him back at the Niflheim base. And because of Ardyn’s insistence, using Gladiolus’ absence as an incentive, the group had no choice but to listen to his demands and allow Aranea to accompany them to retrieve the mythril.

Honestly, Ignis would’ve rather succumbed to the swamp than have to deal with the flurry of emotions just the sight of her brought.

“The sun’s setting soon, so we can just stay here until the ruins open,” she suggested, leaning against the nearby column.

“No.”

Ignis raised his eyebrow, wondering what triggered Noctis’ snappy attitude.

“I want to camp out, eat something good, dry out my clothes, put some ointment on my mosquito bites, and sleep.”

He sounded just like a fussy child, and Aranea’s two underlings laughed, briefly relaxing their stiff posture. She shot them a sharp look, effectively silencing them, before she pushed herself off the column and marched in front of Noctis.

“I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but I certainly don’t want to extend it any longer than it has to be, so just suck it up and move it.”

“Come ooooon, Aranea,” Prompto chimed in. “Can we pleeeaaaaase rest?”

“We have had a long day,” Ignis seconded. “It would be wise to rest and prepare for what we may possibly meet in there.”

“Fine. Suit yourself.” Shaking her head, she ordered her men to fall out before she started walking off. “I’m not getting paid enough to babysit a royal and his whipped consorts…”

“Um, Aranea, the haven is that way.”

She shot a glare at Prompto, who ducked behind Ignis, before marching off in the right direction.

“Noctis,” Prompto started, “if anything goes wrong because she’s with us, I’m blaming you!”

#ignea #highspecs #ignis x aranea #ignis scientia #final fantasy xv #ffxv #my writing #fanfiction #ignis is full of cliches and asides and unnecessary snark because i am too lazy to fully edit this #but i just have one more one-shot left before I publish this elsewhere so yaaaaay #whenever i end up writing it that is #reuploaded because this wasn't showing up in the tags before #if you want your stuff to show up in searches DON'T curse in the tags #Orz

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