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Oh.
Jaskier blinks because it's all he really can think to do. He tilts his head in consideration, eyes to the world around him as he really tries to think. He's got both his feet under him, stance secure and ready - what was he ready for, again?
Oh.. . That .
Well.
He's sung about this before, some of the first songs he'd ever picked up were about this, something endearing to him with their solemn beats, the long held notes that let him get all the listeners swooning at his croon.
It feels different now- which it absolutely should, of course it should. It's actually happening to him. It would be weird if it didn't feel different.
...It feels a little weird regardless. He was really expecting it to hurt.
Well - perhaps not expecting his to hurt. He imagined far far more wails of despair. A lover's clutching caress. A kings solemn thanks for service, perhaps. He at least expected more wrinkles, a bit more wisdom to his ways.
He's still standing and he's thinking about those songs he used to sing, those heroic tales. He thinks about when they reached their chorus, how hard he would sing the names, their histories; folk heroes, mythic legends, queens of destiny and kings of chaos. Their legacies used to fall from his lips until he began to write legends of his own.
He's a little bitter he won't get to write this next one. He has some very specific ideas.
His shoulder makes a sudden impact with the wall and Jaskier realizes he's not as stable on his feet as he was a moment ago, the jostle making his lip quiver.
All those tawdry songs - all those small performances in taverns, or big ones in the large halls - all lead him here. He could map out this song in his head, himself the subject of the chorus. Jaskier felt the air push from his lungs like he was belting to the sky, his jacket tugging at the wood slats of the wall as he sinks down to the ground.
Oh. There it is. Oh . "Yeah-, ha-, " His breath hitches.
It doesn't feel weird anymore but it certainly , absolutely , blazes his senses with agony .
He's shaking as he keeps his gaze up and away, breath fast and sharp, piercing the air with a resignation and punctuating with a touch of hysteria.
Jaskier decides every ballad, bard and bastard with a musical disposition needs to be taken out back of wherever they come from and mercilessly beaten . Tales and tunes and songs of the death of the hero never once mention how bad it hurts.
It hurts. It hurts a lot .
His song better mention how painful all this is, in very explicit detail . He wants nothing left to the imagination - no artistic whimsy, or liberal application of glittering words.
Jaskier is breathing far too quick for comfort, his hands chilling in the air as he looks down at them, the bright red painting across him, his front, down his legs. His chest rattles with his breathing. He can't help the painful moan, his throat feeling dry, the garbled gasp in it bubbling with his staccato breaths.
Perhaps his take would have to be a mix of performance art. Yes - no really it would have to be. Every bard would his salt to his craft would have perform this, the whole song, including a rather dramatic display for the crowd where they -
Oh. Yeah- that , "Ahh-hhhh rrgh ." Jaskier grits his teeth as he just lamely presses around the wound with shaking, numb fingers. He's chuckling- a little. It's kind of funny - really, it - ha .
-To play his song, every other bard would also have to be skewered.
Bollocks to every single historical song he's ever sung. Bollocks to those other heroes, and folk legends, and glamourous tales of those kings and queens who died, who were felled, who were struck in their prime - because this is fucking awful!
Dying is awful! Those tales, those songs, are shit! They are shit, now and forever because they did and do not grasp the gravity of the subject .
Jaskiers got tears in his eyes as he tried to reign in his laughter or his breathing. He's light-headed. He's feeling a little too dizzy as his head bounces back against the wall behind him.
His legs are cold. The song in his head, though? It's fire.
It's angry and bitter and it's so, so entrenched in his pain that he's a little glad no one will ever sing it- or hear it. He's not sure this song is something that can be sung.
Perhaps a sonnet instead. A soliloquy at the end of the stage play of his life. Something solemnly delivered, not quite a eulogy, not quite a private mourning, but a direct, firm address to the audience. What's happening to him, what happened to him. Jaskier, beginning to end, summed up in a firm, direct, and angry, fiery, agonizing soliloquy to a captive audience.
The air is getting heavy around him, it's making it harder to breath, a weight just pressing down on his body, making his hands sag, his breath slow, his head fall back.
He’s staring at rafters, drafty and spaced and all he can think about are the wings of the stage, looking on as he sees the play get cast.
An actor, a little insultingly more handsome than him, swans across the stage in the tights and doublets of his trade, soft silks and velvet. This is - was- Jaskier, peacocking around life, twittering on as he plucks at a lyre. A lyre?
Well - history clearly is going to get it wrong, and an artist as he can understand a little embellishment. This is the part he can stand to be embellished anyways… things will get real soon enough -
The opening acts throw the actor from town to town to town to hall to tavern to gutter to the edge of the world and that - that is where the White Wolf will make his entrance.
A grand entrance - perhaps too soon, or too late in the play, the chilled snow white locks in cascading waves because Jaskier can stand to embellish this too.
It’s a little cliche to have the Wolf literally sweep the Bard off his feet. Jaskier distinctly remembers a gut-punch just too close to below the belt that sent his feet from under him, but this too , he can stand to embellish.
The two actors would then be sent spinning around the stage, beasts and brigands, bandits and battles would lash from the wings, sending the Wolf and the Bard towards and away from each other as it mapped out the things they shared, the things they didn’t. And then - when the Wolf has his back turned.
Jaskier hiccups - something like fear settling in, something like worry, something beyond the anger as he realizes this is it.
The big moment.
The bard on the stage turns his face to the light and - The Wolf begins the soliloquy.
Ah- of course . Who else could do it? Who else could grimly describe what it was that did the bard in? Who else could so perfectly lay out, in a matter of fact tone, with as much accuracy and gruesome detail - with the capability to be so angry - Jaksier’s demise - but Geralt. Geralt of Rivia.
The Bard races after the Wolf, charging towards the barn across a barren field as Nilfgaard soldiers steadily bear down on them. Wrong place, wrong time, rather unfortunate encounter with a war party.
They’re surrounded, and in the distance a clash of steel sings in the darkness. The Wolf has his back turned and the Bard - well he sees the approaching soldier, the glint of the blade. He’ll run the Witcher through, and for a legend to fall? Like that? In some petty skirmish?
Well - Jaskier can’t let that happen, and nor can the Bard.
So he's got both his feet under him, stance secure and ready-
Oh.
Jaskier’s final bow was forced by a blade. Perhaps the sword can be mightier than the pen.
His vision is swimming, the dark of the night creeping ever closer, the sounds of a fight are still clanging away some discordant beat, but it’s muffled. There’s a low ring in his ears that's starting to dull out all music.
Jaskier can’t find it in him to draw his breath. He gets a final glimpse though, of that snow white hair, perhaps far off in the distance of the fight, or right in front of him. Geralt’s a master with a sword - not so much with words…
Yes… a soliloquy would suit him just fine.