Chapter Text
Jaskier had really only taken the class out of necessity - if he were to be a great traveling bard he needed to protect himself out there - but Monsters and Non-Human Creatures was quickly becoming his most loathed class. Professor Pythias was odd and eccentric (in a “I may snap at any moment” kind of way, not a fun artistic kind of way) and his classmates were mostly distant and a bit intimidating. If he didn’t already have a near-failing grade in this class, he’d have left already just to avoid the weird atmosphere.
Jaskier sat up and tried to listen just a bit. Pythias was droning on and on about monster hunters, and in particular, some old class of them called “witchers.”
“Mutated by science and magic, witchers are an unnatural blend of human and monster. The lot of them are incredibly resilient. They live long lifespans, and while they appear human, are not. They lack any human emotion, and are therefore able to kill ruthlessly. Like wild animals, we are meant to respect their power but control their bloodlust.”
Jaskier was never sure if this professor liked monsters or didn’t, but he seemed like he just couldn’t keep himself from the fixation one way or another. That didn’t seem terribly healthy.
“Trusting one like you would another human is a fatal and ignorant mistake since…” The long, late hours of the party Jaskier attended last night were waying heavy on him, and he sighed and slumped back into his chair.
As Pythias droned on, Jaskier was starting to drift to sleep when a loud Bang startled him awake. The professor was banging on his desk in enthusiasm, again.
“So you see, not much was known about witchers, due to their secrecy and low population. But! As we’ve recently procured an ancient specimen, more research is being completed, and the books will be rewritten with a wealth of knowledge! Right here at Oxenfurt!” Jaskier absent-mindedly wondered if his song-writing states looked like this to non-bards. He hoped not.
When Pythias finished his lecture and opened the floor for questions, a (usually very quiet and shy) girl raised her hand and asked -
“Will we be able to see this specimen, or the experiments, Professor?” Pythias nearly jumped out of his seat in reply.
“Not yet dear, but I love your enthusiasm! I hope to open the specimen to student observation once research is done and the state of the specimen is more stable.” He was wondering what kind of specimen would be “unstable” and also capable of answering as many questions as Pythias claimed when a particularly rowdy male student next to him voiced part of his concerns.
“What kind of specimen could be giving you that many answers? I feel like most archeological finds give half a clue before they use up their usefulness.”
“Ah, what good curiosity! I love this class.” Pythias seemed in strange bliss. “Unfortunately I cannot give you that information as it’s classified until we’ve completed our research, but rest assured it gives a wealth of knowledge.”
“What, you got one a job here in exchange for late night campfire stories?” Jaskier perked up. As far as he’d known, he’d seen no professors with bright orange eyes, much less ones shaped like cats’ eyes, so if Pythias really was asking a witcher questions… “or d’you fuck it for each story?” Well, not how he would’ve put it, but that’s certainly one possibility.
“Hah, of course not.” Pythias didn’t argue with the student like Jaskier had expected him to, and that was cause for concern enough. Then he added - “Witchers have no feelings, so I doubt one would be swayed by sexual advances of any kind. Anyways, we’d both be men, as there are no female witchers. Even a mutant would hesitate to take such a deal from another man, I think.” Some of the students giggled at that.
He wasn’t sure if it was the slight on homosexual love or just the weird atmosphere, but Jaskier was asking a question before he even decided he would.
“Do they feel pain?” Jaskier’s words came out faster than he had intended, so he expanded on his sentiment at a slower pace. “I mean, you said they don’t have emotions, but would they feel physical pain?” Pythias seemed so surprised at Jaskier’s sudden attention to his lesson, and couldn’t help but give detail.
“Yes, actually! I believe they feel less pain than a common human as they can continue on with grievous injuries that would result in a human passing out, but they do cry out in physical pain at great wounding. A very interesting development indeed!”
The school’s large, brass bell rang from its spot on the other side of campus, and echoed. Students shuffled and began running out of the classroom immediately as the professor yelled after them to do the assigned reading. Jaskier decided he would do no such thing, and ran out of the classroom feeling slightly sick.
—
Jaskier couldn’t stop thinking about that lesson. If so little was known about witchers, how in the hell would Pythias know their specific reactions to types and depth of pain? If there wasn’t a witcher professor among them, where was this witcher being kept? And - the question he almost didn’t let himself think - was he injuring this witcher? Torturing him?
It couldn’t be. The university would have to be complicit with such a thing, no way Pythias could do it on his own.
But the blissful glee in Pythias’ eyes…
—
He wasn’t doing anything wrong , really, he was just thoroughly investigating the grounds. Any self-respecting traveler knew that the key to being safe in new places was knowing everything about where you stayed and the company you kept. The way he saw it, to not go investigating the grounds was the irresponsible thing. And if he came upon any doors that just so happened to be unlocked by suspiciously missing keys, well, that couldn’t be helped.
He gripped the skeleton key even tighter in his pocket, and absent-mindedly rubbed the rounded end with his thumb. He strained to hear any sound he could down the long corridor stretching out in front of him, but it was difficult to hear much past the seemingly deafening sound of his own boots on the stone floor. The further down the corridor he went, the colder and colder it felt. He noticed his gait was speeding up again, and he disciplined himself into something more casually confident.
Unlike the corridors Jaskier was used to in the rest of Oxenfurt, these had no built-in torch or candle holders. He had been lucky he had thought to bring a small torch of his own. The hall was skinny, and couldn’t possibly fit more than two students side-by-side in them. There was no way a hall like this could handle the hustle and bustle of meal times with hundreds of young people clambering through them.
The stones now surrounding him were old and worn. The floor had a dip down the middle from the passage of the many before him, and if he wasn’t careful to walk straight, he risked rolling an ankle. He was considering a cover-up story of jumping from a dame’s window-
Then he saw it - a few, inconspicuous drops of dried blood on the ground, a great majority of which were smeared in a line forward. Jaskier couldn’t help but start jogging, following the drops through intersections of corridors.
The spots cut off right at a small, windowless stone door. At one end, a hulking silver keyhole with a familiar design bordering it.
Jaskier pushes the skeleton key into the lock slowly, and waits for the quiet click .
No noises come from beyond the door.
No noises come from down the hall.
His torch flickers and sputters quietly.
Jaskier takes a deep breath to hopefully quell the heartbeat pounding in his eardrums.
With trembling fingers, he turns the key and opens the door just enough to peer inside.
The room is entirely pitch back (because of course it is) and Jaskier gently pushes his torch past the door frame. All Jaskier can really see is that the room is made of the same old stone, and that the blood spots do, in fact, continue into this room. When a few moments pass and he isn’t actively being mauled, he quietly slinks into the room and closes the door behind himself. The clunk of the door closing almost makes him jump, and he straightens up stock still and listens carefully while his eyes adjust.
There’s something breathing in here, but the breaths are strangely deep and spaced unnaturally far apart. Jaskier momentarily wishes he had paid more attention in class, actually did the reading before deciding to do this. As it is, all he can really tell is that the…being must be somewhat large to take that big of breaths. (Which, truth be told, should scare him more than it does, but he figures the fact it hasn’t already killed him is encouraging.)
His eyes start to provide him with a vague understanding of the size of the room - it must be quite a bit deeper than it is wide. He takes one step forward and reaches his torch out in front of him.
Two animal eyes shine brightly back in the dark. The lights remind him of the stray cats of the city that lurk in the night, but these belong to a much, much taller creature. The gaze is held steadily on Jaskier, but the deep breaths it’s taking cause the eyes to bob up and down in the effort. He wonders in the back of his mind if that’s normal for this being, or if it’s hurt.
He stands like this for a while - staring into the eyes and awaiting some reaction - when he realizes he doesn’t feel as frightened as he probably ought to be. Figuring his intuition is pretty dependable, he takes another step forward.
Jaskier’s heart drops (but he’s not surprised, if he’s honest with himself) to see a man’s face looking back at him. The eyes are brightly orange and cat-like, there’s blood covering at least half the face from a head wound, and unnaturally silver hair frames it, but it’s a human face nonetheless. The man says nothing, but his expression is carefully curated to yell Fuck Off.
(Alt link to image: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IgPb_uo9S3QmK4_8D3A7iR6qVrMYeOjH/view?usp=drive_link )
“Who…who are you?” Jaskier says, at a whisper. The man doesn’t respond. A little louder, more confident, this time - “You’re a Witcher, right?”
Still nothing.
Jaskier steps forward to catch up with his torch. The man is chained up by his arms - bent unnaturally straight upwards towards the anchor in the ceiling. He’s on his knees, and Jaskier assumes there must be braces on his ankles he can’t see behind the man.
Despite a large portion of the man’s weight seemingly slumped and dangling, he isn’t swaying at all and seems intent on keeping himself as still and focused as possible - minus the in and out movement of his breath that seems to take the movement of his whole torso to create.
Jaskier puts one hand up in a show of surrender (not that he could fight a witcher unbound anyways) and puts the torch slowly and gently on the ground. He takes a step forward to look closer at the bindings, but the man bares his teeth at him and furrows his brow deeper than Jaskier thought possible. Jaskier opts to sit on the ground where he is, instead, legs crossed. The man’s expression relaxes a minute amount.
“I take it you’re not here of your own free will, huh?” Jaskier is talking mostly for his own comfort, but he’d also like to know if the man can speak at all, frankly. The man’s face doesn’t change. “I, uh, am a student here at Oxenfurt. I’m Jaskier. Or Dandelion, or Julian, or…really whatever you’d like to call me. I’m here to study the bardic arts; the women often tell me I’ve a heavenly singing voice, I’ll have you know. Too bad I wasn’t hired to come give you a show.” His attempt at lightning the mood falls flat with his audience.
The man is only in smallclothes, and he is most definitely hurt. His body is covered in day-old wounds, some that still ooze strange, dark blood out of him sluggishly. The unmarred skin (of which there is frighteningly little - Jaskier tries not to focus on that) is paler than anyone Jaskier has ever met and has a very defined spider web of veins. His frame isn’t too much larger than Jaskier’s - a fair amount taller, maybe - but his visible ribs are concerning.
Maybe the man isn’t in the mood for jokes, but it’s most of Jaskier’s content. He struggles to try something a bit more serious.
“So I guess I’m here of my own free will, but I’m becoming increasingly worried about some of the University’s…extra curricular activities, and a good friend helps his mates, right? I wouldn’t want to leave the place in this sort of state. So, uh, got any reviews for the place I could submit as a grievance? Zero out of ten, shit cafeteria?” He thinks he sees the man’s expression relax more, so he keeps going. “Or perhaps a particular staff member you’d like to request we fire? Personally, I have a short list of professors who unfairly failed me in their classes and I would love the chance to start some rumors.”
There’s a long pause where Jaskier isn’t sure if he should continue or give the man some space. He’s about to open his loud mouth when he hears something of a grumble from the man.
“I’m sorry, what? I’m afraid merry-making isn’t the best for my hearing.” Jaskier hopes the grumble was an invitation to conversation and not an attempt at shutting him up. The man would have to try a lot harder to shut him up.
“Witcher accommodations,” the voice that comes from the man is so rough and deep Jaskier almost doesn’t recognize it as words. The man seems to be struggling a bit to talk, himself, so Jaskier sits as still as he can and listens carefully. “Could use renovations.”
Jaskier almost laughs out loud at the release of tension that comes from hearing the witcher speak, (and to continue his joke, at that) but he thinks better of it. He can’t help the wide smile that spreads on his face, though.
“Ah, as it seems so. Can I take a look?” He gestures at the witcher’s bindings, and when he doesn’t respond, Jaskier slowly rises and walks towards him.
When Jaskier’s fingers brush the witcher’s wrist where it’s bound, the witcher flinches back very slightly. Only then does Jaskier notice how rubbed raw, angry, and bleeding the man’s wrists are and curses himself as he puts his hands firmly into his pockets. The clasps are dark in color, made of warped angry metal, and probably a good four centimeters thick, if not more. He sees no keyhole in either of them. The chains that reach into the ceiling are anchored much too high for Jaskier to reach, and are thick enough to not be easily cut by any hand tool Jaskier knows of.
“How the hell did they even…”
“Magic.” The witcher supplies, apparently convinced Jaskier is trying to help him. “Melted the keyholes and joints shut.”
“Melitele…” Jaskier curses. He looks down at the witcher’s ankles which are similarly bound by warped (previously melted, apparently) metal that is screwed tightly into the stone floor. Perhaps they could remove the stones from the ceiling and floor, and once the witcher was out of here, find someone who could break the bindings…? Jaskier has no idea where to start. “Any witchery ideas on getting you out of these?”
“Dimeritium metal. Prevents my…” Jaskier almost thinks he hears a playful tone on the witcher’s voice, “witchery magic.”
“Well, fuck. Unless they magically open from a rip roarin’ good sea shanty, I guess I’m of no help.” He’s quickly trying to scan his mind for any particularly crazy Oxenfurt students that would know how to break metal. Even the most party-enthusiastic of his friends hadn’t told him of breaking metal this thick. “Unless you witchers can, like, grow back limbs?” He says it with mock-hopefulness, and the witcher just sort of grumbles in dissent.
“I should…probably leave before some guard discovers their iron-clad defenses were broken by one bard boy.” The words come out slowly, hesitantly, but he tells himself he’d be better help alive and on the outside then dead in the cell here. “I’ll get some food and salves for your wounds…and research ways to break the bonds, I guess. I promise I’ll come back to get you out.”
“A strong sorceress or mage.” The witcher says, and Jaskier only has a moment to wonder if he’s losing it. “Would be able to break them, probably.” Jaskier nods in agreement.
“How many of those do you think would be willing to help a witcher for free? Know of any who would accept a night of songs as payment?” The witcher grunts in disagreement to that and Jaskier adds, “Yeah…figured. Listen, I’ll…have to be careful, since it seems the university is…more than complicit in all this. I wouldn’t want them knowing something’s amiss and tightening defenses down here, so…I’m sorry, but it might take a while. I promise I’ll come check on you regularly, okay?”
The witcher nods, but makes no sound.
“Alright. Don’t die, okay? Then I’ll lose my chance at a really great legend and so many good ballads. The world will be deprived of such great art, and will no doubt be lesser for it.”
“Wouldn’t want that.” The witcher says. The monotone makes Jaskier unsure if he liked the joke or is getting tired of them, but either way he grabs his torch and starts towards the door. Right before he touches the handle, he just barely hears behind him -
“Geralt.”
“What? Missing me already?” Jaskier asks, mostly just hoping for more out of the witcher.
“My name. Geralt. of Rivia.”
“Good to meet you, Geralt of Rivia.” Jaskier nods in Geralt’s direction with a soft smile. Then he opens the door and slips out into the corridor as quietly as he can.