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Out Of Character Permissions

Out Of Character
Backtagging: Yes, always, even if it's been literal years.
Threadhopping: As long as you give me the heads up!
Fourthwalling: No.
Offensive subjects: I do have some hard nos: animal abuse, sexual assault/abuse and the like, but overall I'm more than happy to delve into dark subjects, let's just talk about it first.

In Character Permissions

In Character Hugging/kissing/flirting with this character: Yes.
Fighting with this character: 100% yes.
Injuring this character: Yes, of course.
Killing this character: No thank you.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Yes but I'd prefer plotting these roleplay elements.

Shipping

Everyone Gets a Ride
Fave: Jaskier, Yennefer
Yes:Mostly everyone else, including cross canon.
Maybe: Everyone aside from those listed in no. If you have an idea, send me a message and let's plot! I'm very open to ships.
No: Ciri. Underage (both players and characters).
Gen: Basically anyone.

code

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Easily remedied, my dear. I'll just sleep on top of Geralt," Jaskier says with a grin. It's not like he doesn't usually sleep on top of or under him most nights. "I'm not going to force you out, Eskel, so this is entirely up to you. If you and Geralt want time alone too, I can actually find my own room, or try to convince Lambert to bed me," he laughs.

"I'll bet you a bottle of dwarven whiskey straight from the stills below Mount Carbon that you will not manage your charms with Lambchop. He's too prickly." Eskel says, always eager to make a wager. "You'd have better luck with Coën. He's pretty straight but like me he probably hasn't had much luck on account of his face. And he's probably more lonely and out of his depth than Lambert. Didn't grow up here."

"He may be prickly, but does he sleep with men?" If he doesn't, then Jaskier doesn't have any chance. If he does, then Jaskier is more than happy to try. If Lambert isn't interested, well Jaskier still has Geralt and now Eskel, so it't not like he's lacking in bed partners, just in variety.

Coen is an interesting suggestion, however.

Jaskier isn't going to go anywhere near the sorceresses. That seems like it would be far too much drama for him.

"Not as far as I know. But we were in different cohorts. If he was fooling around in his own novice group, I never heard about it. Haven't heard about him going with men on the Path either." Eskel shrugs. "Try your luck but don't say I didn't warn you." He watches Jaskier from under the edge of his eyelids.

"Will you sit with me a while?" He asks. "When you're done with the bath, I mean."

"Well, I'll let you know what I find out," Jaskier replies with a shark like grin.

"Of course I'll stay. I could even play for you, if you have any requests?" He sits down on the edge of the bed and reaches for his lute. He plays most nights for those in the dining hall, but Eskel hasn't really joined them yet. Hopefully now, he will.

"Nothing about my brother, maybe?" Eskel says, in an obviously teasing tone. "I get enough of his ego in person." Not that the places where Geralt excels over him have ever done the other man any good. "Maybe something a little bawdy. It's been pretty humorless cooped up alone."

"Oh, I'm sure I can write an epic song about you as well, my dear," Jaskier responds. He reaches for his lute and starts tuning it while he considers his arsenal. He has quite a few bawdy songs that he could sing, so he starts with his favourite, adding a little sexiness to his performance just for Eskel.

This is...really nice, actually. More than he'd care to admit aloud but the way he relaxes, rolling onto his good side to get comfortable, tracking Jaskier's clever fingers with his bright, golden eyes. He has to admit that the bard is very good at what he does. Even recovering from injury, his fingers dance along the lute strings and his fine tenor voice seems to ring off the stone walls of the little room.

And the song is actually quite funny, in the way bawdy tavern songs are. Eskel's not sure what to make of the way the bard seems to infuse the performance with his own flirtatious charms. It must be very impressive to see him work a crowd though, he thinks.

He dozes off with a smile on his worn-face.

All seems well for a while until something wakes him from his napping. A pain in the wound on his back and then a feeling of something horribly sticky soaking his bandages and running into the sheets.

Jaskier plays most of the bawdy songs he knows for Eskel, switching to some more vocally based songs when his fingers tire and he notices that Eskel is falling asleep. Whatever he and Geralt had done earlier must have been involved for the Witcher to be this tired.

Jaskier is about to pack up when Eskel wakes suddenly, with a look of pain on his face.

"What's happening?" Jaskier asks. "What-" but then the smell hits him and he wrinkles his nose. "Eskel, tell me what you need."

It's less than his and Geralt's fooling around this morning had been strenuous and more that it had released an incredible weight from the witcher. He feels at peace for the first time in a long time and his weary body simply takes the opportunity to sleep the moment he feels safe.

Eskel sits up and notes a large, ichorous stain on the sheets where his back had been, smelling like wet wood and leaf rot and something else, acrid and unnatural.

"Go get Vesemir, quick." He says, real fear in his eyes when he looks at Jaskier.

{{And I can take on Vesemir as an NPC so you don't have to carry all the extra characters yourself. He won't be needed for very long since Eskel's going to be fine.}}

Edited 2023-09-01 20:11 (UTC)

[ ooc: oh, excellent. Thank you :) ]

Jaskier eventually tapers off with playing. He can't do it nearly as long as he used to be able to because of the injury, and the fact that this isn't a lute his used to. Geralt had unearthed it from some storage room in the keep. He sets it down gently on the makeshift stand and then opens to book he'd been reading. He's not sure how long passes, likely not too long because Witchers don't often sleep for long periods of time, until Jaskier starts to notice a very strange and terrible scent.

He wrinkles is nose but doesn't have time to do much more than that, because Eskel is sitting up and telling him to find Vesemir, and then Jaskier is off, rushing through the halls looking for the old man.

Vesemir is in the great hall, arguing with Coën and Lambert about divying up the day's work.

"If you wanted to skip out on chores, you should have joined your brother in hunting for Eskel's leshen." He says. "But you didn't want to do that because it's too cold and it's too wet, you said. So you can stay nice and warm and dry in here. Cleaning equipment and inventorying alchemical supplies. Or you can-- oh what now?" The old wolf turns his attention to Jaskier when the bard careens into the hall. "What's wrong with you, boy?"

Jaskier doesn't mean to interrupt Vesemir dressing Lambert down for trying to shirk his chores, but this is much more important. "It's Eskel. Something's happening." He's not really sure how else to describe it, he just needs Vesemir to come. "Please, I think it's something bad."

He starts to lead Vesemir away from Eskel's room but then stops. "He's in Geralt's room." Which must be very telling.

Vesemir can deal with the boys lapsing back into their old habits later. Or maybe he won't, they're grown men now and what can he do? In any case, they all have bigger problems at the moment. Doesn't stop him from frowning about it.

Eskel's on the floor when they get to Geralt's room, his bandages soaked with that black stuff. He's shuddering and whimpering.

"Vesemir..." He gasps, reaching for his father figure. "What's happening?"

"I don't know, boy, but I don't like the look of it." The old witcher steps into the room, drawing the huge silver hunting knife as he does so. Eskel doesn't fight as the old man lays it against his neck.

"I'm just going to look. This is a precaution, nothing more." Vesemir promises.

"If there's so much as a twig stickin' out of me, cut my head off." Eskel pleads, eyes wide with fear.

Vesemir sits him forward, peels off the bandages. His frown deepens, but he doesn't do anything to Eskel. He reaches for the ruined sheet on the bed and swipes at the wound.

"I think...I think the wound is purging itself, somehow." He says, after a moment. He pulls a bottle of red Swallow from the bracer of potion bottles on his forearm, uncorks it with his teeth, and upends it onto the hole.

It begins to close, for the first time in weeks Vesemir can see real progress: pink, healthy skin pulling the hole closed.

"I don't know what's happening." The old witcher admits. "But it's good, I think." He tosses the knife onto Geralt's bed and just holds Eskel, something he has't done since the other man was a foundling of just four. But now he's comforting as much as restraining...just in case.

By the time things seem to settle down, the black scarring down Eskel's arm and up the side of his neck is gone, replaced by faint and entirely normal-looking scars. The hole in his back, added by the application of Swallow, looks like an ordinary wound, already scabbed over. Likely to be just another faint scar by next nightfall.

"Does it hurt?" Vesemir asks.

"No." Eskel breathes, his tone baffled but relieved. "Not anymore, not like it did."

Jaskier is quickly pushed out of the room, likely because if the Leshen is trying to overtake Eskel again, he will be in great danger. He frets outside of the door for a moment or two, but then he needs to do something. He needs to be distracted from what may be happening in the room. He'd seen the wicked looking blade that Vesemir had brought in with him.

Instead, he finds himself hovering around the lab, where he hears Yennefer and Triss speaking from behind the door. He knocks lightly, and then lets himself in.

"Bard," Yennefer greets.

"Witch," Jaskier quips back. "I need something to do. Geralt isn't here and Eskel might be dying. Please let me chop or squish or something." He'd helped Geralt make potions on the road - nothing dangerous to humans, but he's chopped herbs, bugs, other disgusting things, so he knows that he can do this.

"Here," Triss tells him with a soft voice, setting a tray in front of him.

"Geralt and Ciri went monsgter hunting," Yennefer tells him without him having to convince it out of her. "They should be back after dinner."

Jaskier nods, pitting it all together and realising that Geralt went to find the Leshen, and that might be what's going on with Eskel. The idea terrifies him. If the creature fell someone like Eskel, it must be dangerous and deadly. Jaskier doesn't want to lose Geralt that way.

At least some of his fears might be assuaged when Vesemir comes into the lab, with Eskel on tow. He's still wearing the brace on his leg, but he has renewed hope that he might be able to heal this injury now that the remains of the leshen aren't festering in his body. And he's standing upright, no longer stooped with pain or weakness. He calls out to the bard, knowing how worried the human must be.

"It's alright now, Jaskier. No idea what happened, but...the wound is all but gone. Ruined that mattress though, probably. We'll have to find another one."

"Eskel," Jaskier says when they walk in. He doesn't exactly drop what he's doing, but it's a near thing. He carefully puts his knife down and makes sure that the herbs he'd been cutting won't fall, but then he's in front of Eskel, giving him a proper hug. It's strange, because he feels like he knows Eskel much better than the big Witcher knows him, and Jaskier is probably being a bit too affectionate with him, especially under three pairs of watchful eyes.

"Geralt went to kill the Leshen," he says. Eskel's wound healing could mean many things. The Leshen could be dead. It could have taken Geralt instead. There's no way for Jaskier to know.

Eskel looks Vesemir and the old man's mustache twitches thoughtfully.

"It could be that the leshen could not properly mark you. You were prevented from becoming its vessel when I pulled the main roots out of you." The master witcher notes. "But I could not get them all, if the infiltration was unusual, impacted by its mutations. It might be that the leshen was in mortal pain, tried to transfer to you, it couldn't properly without the full root system. Or it's death means the infiltration has purged itself. Both options likely mean Geralt had a successful hunt. We can hope, anyway."

Jaskier certainly hopes so. He cares so deeply for Geralt, and he can't imagine life without him now that they've reconnected once again. If something's happened to his Witcher, or to the little princess, Jaskier isn't sure what he will do. Even when they'd spent so many years apart, Jaskier had asked after Geralt, has listened for rumours of dead or injured Witchers. If Geralt had found him again only to go off and die... he doesn't know what he will do.

Perhaps Vesemir could let him stay. He could wander the frigid halls of Kaer Morhen for the remainder of his days, haunting them like a ghost.

He looks between Eskel and Vesemir, frowning. "If the wound is healed, why did you come up here?"

"To tell you the good news myself, I guess. Been laying around for long enough. And because I'll need a hand dragging that mattress out to the courtyard so I can burn it." Eskel says, stretching as if to emphasize that he's feeling less pain.

That changes things a little, and Jaskier is glad that he'd come. "I thought maybe... with the poison gone, Triss might be able to help with your leg," Jaskier says, shrugging. He hopes so, but there's no knowing, really. Not for him at least. He's not an expert in chaos.

"And you should ask Lambert to help you with the mattress. He's apparently been shirking his chores," he says with a teasing grin. "Now maybe we can find a larger mattress."

Depending on the chores in question, Lambert might be willing to help, Eskel figures. And he probably could stand to have a word with the ill-tempered younger wolf. Repairing his relationship to Geralt had been his priority, but he knows Geralt isn't the only one who probably suffered for having to see him go mad and turn on the rest of the keep.

As for his leg, he's not sure the mages can do much but the pain is so much less now. There's just the stiffness and the awkwardness of the missionary bone. But it's easier to limp about now and he finds himself less despairing of his chances of fixing it.

He calls for Lambert, who slinks into the room as if ashamed to have been caught lurking (along with the rest of the witchers) to listen to whatever drama had just transpired. He complains, of course, about having to help but the way he claps his brother on the shoulder and grins when he teases him shows his relief more than kinder words ever could.

Jaskier watches them go with a grin on his face. He's slept with Eskel already, he knows, but he can't help but think about how much better it will be now. Especially with Geralt there too. If Geralt's okay. But he has to be. Jaskier can't even consider him not being okay.

They really do need a larger bed, though.

Wanting to give Eskel and Lambert some time to talk, Jaskier stays with the sorceresses, helping prepare ingredients for another hour or so. He'll bully Geralt and Eskel into helping him find another mattress later. For now, he'd promised Vesemir he'd help in the kichen for dinner.

Eskel and Lambert sort out the mattress and the scarred witcher has time to talk to his brothers as they stand around watching the mattress burn.

And they wait for Geralt to come back. Eskel's on the verge of volunteering to go look for him when there's a cry from whoever's on watch to open the gates to let his brother and the young she-wolf that rode out with him.

Geralt rides back, Ciri at his side. He sees Lambert and Eskel first, surprised to see Eskel out of bed. He motions for Ciri to go on ahead and stops in front of his brothers. “Eskel? What are you doing out of bed? Is that my mattress?”

He can tell already that Eskel is doing better than he had been even this morning. It must be because his Leshen is dead, and the magic that Eskel had been plagued with dead alongside it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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ugh sorry, life this week :/

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