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There are some years where spring creeps up on you piecemeal, where one day you’re walking down a street and you notice the first shoot poking out the ground, startlingly green, but then it snows again that night, and it's not until there are posies of flowers for sale in the market and you forget to wear a scarf that you realise that winter is properly over. Then some years spring wanders in for a flying visit, kisses you on both cheeks, laughs her golden laugh and is gone again, summer hot on her heels, and some years you’re walking through a barren field, go to sleep, and wake up in a bed of wildflowers.
Geralt was unsure which spring he wanted this year. Most years, he counts down the days because winter means poverty and biting cold, but this year, with Jaskier’s invitation weighing on his mind, he desperately wants the flowers to bloom and for there to be a new ice age at the same time.
Despite his feelings, winter dragged on into what should by rights be warmer times. He had managed to scrape enough coin to rent somewhere for longer than a single night, but something kept him working, riding Roach hard even though she hrumphed her complaint at the ice and snow, building up a cache of coin and unable to name the reason why.
Then, sometime when winter was starting to very much out stay its welcome, he’s riding through a large town, just passing through, when someone runs up to him, panting and holding an item like it might explode.
“Master Geralt of Rivia? We have a letter for you.”
The letter is a fancy affair. Thick ink layered expertly on thick paper, a flourish at the end of every letter of every word to the point its difficult to work out whether it is even written in common tongue and not some form of arcane rune.
Geralt slits it open with a knife caked in blood so it doesn’t get ideas above its station, and the mouth of the envelope drops an engraved invitation and a note into his lap. Geralt throws a coin to the delivery boy, who bows to the letter and legs it.
Thankfully for his sanity, the note is scribbled on the usual thin paper people use when writing shopping lists or doodling cocks when bored. Normal paper.
“Dear Geralt,
I had to give the patron dates to set in stone. Take this either as an invitation or a warning, I do not care which (apart from that I do). If you do come, wear something clean and leave the swords at home, they’ll block the view for the other patrons.
If you don’t, I still hope to see you once spring has sprung.
I will be in town until “the season” begins on the usual date.
Your friend,
Jaskier”
By comparison to the note, the invitation was paradoxically heavy despite being a small, square of thick card. The layer of gilding made Geralt think he could probably behead someone with it if he threw it hard enough.
The invitation read:
The Premiere Performance Of a NEWE Songe Cycle from Worlde Renouwnede Barde
JASKIER*
15th March
ADMITE ONE
*title to be confirmed
“Hmm”, Geralt hemmed to himself, and tucked both pieces of paper into his doublet to deal with preferably never.
Lying in bed that night he considered his lot. It was the end of February. To get to Oxenfurt would be just over two weeks solid riding, and there was still snow on the ground with no end in sight. It would be difficult to get that far before the 15th. Jaskier had given him an out, obviously, but there’s a difference between deliberately missing an event due to the Witcher Code or saving some maiden from a dragon, and missing it despite riding your horse half to death across a snowy wasteland.
Best to deliberately miss it, Geralt thought as he fell asleep. They’d agreed spring. The equinox is five days later.
When he woke the next morning though, it was rudely, obviously spring. The snow had melted, there were snowdrops and bluebells underfoot, and while the temperature hadn’t changed, there was something special about the air. Crisp, the townsfolk nodded to each other sagely.
Geralt rode out that afternoon.
--
He misses the premiere, riding into town the day after the ides too late even for that night’s performance. He finds lodgings and stubbornly spends his own coin on a ticket for that evening’s performance rather than calling on Jaskier and getting another gilded throwing invitation. The cheap ink smudges under his thumb, but it makes him feel less like he’s going to run into the nearest tavern and drink himself to death, so it feels like a win.
The theatre had a banner the likes of which are only ever seen at the front of conquering armies to intimidate opposing armies. It’s enormous, stretching from the top of the roof of one of Oxenfurt’s tallest buildings to a foot or so from the ground, tamped down with stakes to stop it flying away. On it, a decent image of a wildcat transforming into a queen snakes down into a crown and sword. Below it reads CALANTHE - THE LIONESS OF CINTRA - A SONG CYCLE by JASKIER.
He leaves his swords behind but wears his travelling leathers out of needing something to hide behind, and sneaks into the cheap seats just before the curtain rises.
His seat is in the middle of a bank of students from the university, but they don’t notice him, too occupied with all talking excitedly over each other. “Semi-staged, of course” one dark haired scholar says to the blonde beauty on his right, “We don’t even have an opera house, so it’s the best they can do out here in the provinces, but I’ve heard great things, apparently the costumes are incredible, and the bard makes some very adventurous decisions with the harmonic structure.”
His date starts to reply, but mercifully the lights are blown out and the magic lantern turns on and everyone obediently falls silent.
The musicians strike up a marching cadence, and a woman strides onto the stage under a trumpeting fanfare. She’s wearing plate armour and is carrying her helmet under one arm, and is covered in a tasteful amount of the blood of her enemies. She’s not particularly buxom, but she’s wearing unrealistic armour, the breastplate hammered out very well in two distinct bumps to indicate breasts, and she’s wearing a crown apparently underneath the helmet, but the complexities of the costuming fall away as the woman opens her mouth and sings in Jaskier’s voice about the ferocity of the lioness of Cintra and Geralt just about falls off the bench.
He hadn’t known what any of the theatre terms meant, didn’t understand what this whole semi-staged song cycle thing meant, but what it apparently meant was that Jaskier was on stage for an hour, accompanied by musicians hidden off-stage, singing in character as the ferocious Queen of Cintra, telling the tale of her tragic love story, her wars and battles, the double child-surprise, the continued love of her people and their resilience against enemies foreign and domestic.
Jaskier had used what budget he had on a costume for each song in the cycle, of which there were four. Four dresses, four wigs, the other characters represented by rod puppets he deftly wove the narrative with, singing in distinct voices or using instruments of the including one of Geralt for the final song, the hair of the puppet made of snow white chicken feathers stark against the painted background of a castle.
The whole performance took an hour, and when the music finally builds up to a crashing crescendo and the lights go out dramatically, the whole theatre erupts into a cacophony of rapturous applause and loud whooping and hollering. Jaskier reappears and beams, bows and curtsies to the crowd and throws kisses out to them, his palm soon streaked red with the queen’s lipstick.
The students around Geralt titter and swoon about how wonderful and revolutionary and challenging to the zeitgeist the whole thing was, and continue to not notice Geralt so he takes the opportunity to leg it down the stairs, fighting against the flow of patrons floating dreamily towards the exits, still caught in the romance and beauty of the performance.
Geralt finds his way backstage with very little difficulty, considering the reception. He had been prepared to use signs to avoid any awkward questions, but he just asked the first man he saw where Jaskier was, and the man just pointed him the way, down some stairs and through the door and told him to follow the flowers.
The hallway was full of them; from tiny posies tied with ribbons right the way up to enormous bouquets of unseasonal hothouse roses, more flowers than grow in a whole year in some kingdoms, all just piled up so as to lead a fragrant path to an otherwise nondescript door.
Geralt considers a few things, mutters to himself, but then straightens his shoulders and knocks before he loses his nerve.
“Enter!” Jaskier’s voice calls from within.
Jaskier is still in costume, the final costume, his face still powdered and rouged. He sees Geralt in the mirror and raises an eyebrow. “Hello. What do we have here?”
Geralt doesn’t really know what to say. He wants to say “you were brilliant, everyone was crying, I’m so proud to be your friend, by the way, I can’t stop thinking about how it felt when you fucked me and I’d really like to do it again but I’ve thought about it too much I’ve developed a complex”, but at the same time he really wants to say the exact opposite of that.
He decides to take the road well travelled, cocks an eyebrow and gives a deep bow. “Your majesty. Your humble servant, at your service.”
Jaskier smiles and he is a better actor than he is a liar, because Geralt has seen that smile on the real Queen and it is deadly in either incarnation.
“Witcher.”
“The very one.”
“Kneel.”
Geralt narrows his eyes. “I didn’t kneel for the real queen, I won’t kneel for a pretender”.
“So be it” Jaskier says, and turns back to the mirror. He opens a small pot of cream, and takes great care to apply a small amount to his fingers and up his arms and then carefully wiping away the stage dirt and smudges of red paint, too red to be blood in this light, but that looked effective from the penny seats.
“I had asked for you last week,” he says. “I am sure you have a good explanation for why you are so late?”
“Gryphon”, Geralt said, which was true.
“And you were the only one who could deal with it, I’m sure.”
“Yes.” Less true. There was a garrison nearby, but he was starting to freak out about what he was riding into, and killing it calmed him down.
“Well, I’m sure they were grateful. Not as grateful as I would have been had you arrived in good time, but who am I to stand between a Witcher and his prey?”
Jaskier’s fingers are in the pot of cream, swirling idly as he watches Geralt watching him in their reflection in the mirror.
“I apologise, your majesty. I am in your debt.” Geralt says, eyes following the swirl of fingers.
“Yes, I think you are.” Jaskier says as he stands. His lips are very red, and his eyes are very blue, ringed with black. The darker hair suits him, and beneath the white powder his whiskers are breaking through, and Geralt is suddenly very aware he knows what they feel like against his thighs.
“Kneel” the queen commands, and there’s no arguing this time, and Geralt’s knees go out from under him in instinctive obedience.
Jaskier is wearing dancer’s shoes, soft things of calf leather and ribbon stained to look like a knight’s boots. Inside them he wears pale stockings that are tied in the pit of his knee with crimson ribbon. When Geralt unties them they unroll over shapely calves speckled with masculine hair and the pits and small scars that tell the story of a life on the road, and it feels like the facade of the Queen is peeling away, revealing the truth beneath.
The skirts Jaskier wears for the final act are simple enough compared to those of earlier acts, but they’re still the skirts of a queen. On top there is the rich over-dress, the embroidery painted on with tiny strokes of a brush when examined up close, and the fabric is the kind of velvet better fitted for a pub’s carpet than the coverings of a queen, but its soft enough as Geralt pulls it up towards Jaskier’s waist. Beneath the overdress are the petticoats, rough with horsehair braid at the hems to give them the regal shape and Jaskier wears layers and layers of them to give the queen her legendary figure.
Geralt lifts them all easily, but the silhouette is slim towards the top, and so instead of pulling the whole thing off he ducks underneath where the air is warm and thick with male musk, and runs his hands up the queen’s thighs. She isn’t wearing knickers, and the thought that Jaskier has been naked under these skirts all night in front of a hundred people excites him.
Jaskier sits down heavily and pulls up the hem of his skirts just enough to see the moment that Geralt takes his prick into his mouth, then groans loudly and drops them over Geralt’s head.
Jaskier’s prick is already hard as an iron bar, the head fat and bulbous on the tongue, weeping slowly and steadily as Geralt does his best to coordinate his tongue and teeth and the suction with his soft palate from the wrong side of the coin, thinking about what feels good and how damned difficult it is. It’s easier to just focus on the head and suck, tuck his tongue under the foreskin when he feels like he’s in a rhythm and listen to the curses and blessings spill from his queen’s mouth.
Jaskier pulls him off eventually, pulling him out from under the skirts and pushing him back on the floor. He gets on hands and knees and crawls over Geralt like the lioness of legend, and kisses him with passion and fury. The kiss is sweet like hard candy and passionate like a summer storm, and there’s the dual sensations of the waxy slip of the queen’s lipstick and the soft burr of Jaskier’s whiskers that confuse and arouse Geralt’s mind as much as his body.
Jaskier stands up and offers Geralt a hand, helps him up, and then maneuvers him to bend at the waist over the dressing table. He leans over his back and grins a very unregal smile, and Geralt smiles back at the picture of them both, smeared with rouge, lipstick, kohl and powder, Geralt’s lips swollen and used, his medallion dangling from his shirt and glinting in the candlelight.
Jaskier makes quick work of his leathers, and takes up the cold cream with purpose. The feel of fingers is familiar now, a new winter habit he’s picked up since they parted. It’s easier than the first time, easier to breathe into it and know what’s coming and to enjoy the journey for what it is, Jaskier’s expert fingers and heavy breathing combining to wind him up like a top. The queen’s skirts brush against his naked backside as Jaskier lifts them to free himself, and then there’s a soft brush of Jaskier’s fat cock against his arse and a hand in his hair, pulling his face up to look in the mirror.
“Ask for it”, the queen demands, and Geralt can’t do anything but moan in return “Your majesty, please” brokenly, and then Jaskier presses in and holds Geralt there so he can see the (shocked, overwhelmed) look on his face as he presses in and home.
There’s no way a fuck like that can last long, not even with Geralt’s stamina, especially as Geralt can see everything reflected in the mirror, can see the way that the trappings of the queen start to dislodge with each thrust, the wig toppling and exposing Jaskier’s spiky, sweatslicked head, the further slip of the makeup as they build up a sweat exposing the normal hue and texture of his skin. The skirts are piled up at first, but then Jaskier pauses and rips the overdress off over his head, unlaces the stays with one hand, the sandbags of his tits falling to each side, and then the petticoats and their abrasive horsehair are gone and then the queen is gone altogether and its them, fucking as themselves in the back of the theatre, the smell of sex and makeup and hot house roses around them as the candlelight flickers in time with each brutal, driving thrust.
Geralt has his hand on himself all the way through it, but its barely needed because it's so good to feel Jaskier in him again, giving him what he’s barely stopped thinking about for months now, something the push of his own fingers has never properly been able to replicate, that feeling of unexpected strength and power and passion, and really, he barely lasted a few minutes once the queen was shed, coming over his fist and his barely pushed down leathers, growling at Jas to come, and for once, Jas does what Geralt asks and spills with a high pitched groan.
They lean against the table in the aftermath, still half undone and barely able to hold themselves up and Jas closes his eyes and guffaws, his face a picture of debauchery, much like the whole room at this point.
“Hello” he says, looking up at Geralt from under his eyelashes, shy and sheepish like his spunk isn’t running down Geralt’s thigh, and then presses his head against Geralt’s shoulder. “I wasn’t sure you’d come” he says, muffled, and then giggles again at his own double entendre, before lifting his head to face him.
“I nearly didn’t” Geralt confesses. “Thought about this too much. Got in my own head,” but he doesn’t have those worries now, feels peaceful and content and sated down to his bones in a way he so rarely gets from just one round of sex. “Nothing in there now though” he says, and puts his hand on the side of Jaskier’s face, running his thumb against the wreck of his makeup and this kiss is emphatically just them, no queen at all.