[Ironically, time passes much the same as it had when he was in the cult's hands. It is only after, really, he learns so much about them -- though it became increasingly obvious, once he noted how people changed. The way he was spoken to. The tattoo forced upon them that they all had to bear.
Once he is released into the Coven's care, time edges along without much notice from himself. He's quiet, so uncharacteristically so, because he can think of nothing to say. No, he does not wish to speak on it. Could he know something important, that would lead to their further downfall? No. He wasn't spoken to often, and when he was there was no information.
He didn't ask questions. He didn't investigate. And now, released, it is so much more humiliating to know that. That he had sat there and accepted it. The most he'd done is scream. Kick the harpy who first came to take care of him, once. After that, he was too tired for any more.
Eventually, the Coven releases him; not, they emphasize, he was ever really held against his will. Because who would want to further spread the illness? (He remembered wanting exactly that, instinctually, down to his core. The need to spread it.) Jaskier simply doesn't argue. The... the growths are removed from him, the scar that had split opened gradually closed once again. His arm had been wrapped and rewrapped, squeezed until his blood went red again instead of black. Unfortunate that large chunks of his hair still remained black, the pigmentation permanently changed.
Ah, well. Shit and uphill and all that.
It takes him some time before he manages to go outdoors, but with having (fatefully) already moved into a manor with Geralt and Yennefer, a lovely, magicked garden has come along with it. He finds some solace there, though he made absolutely sure to ask Yennefer that there were no -- no growths there. That would remind him.
He looks up when he hears familiar heavy footfalls that, despite their familiarity, still leave his heart racing. He white-knuckles the stone bench underneath him until Geralt comes into view.
A flash of golden eyes. He shivers, swallowing it down. At least no vision follows it after. (Is that man, Brennan, still alive?)
Jaskier glances at the food, taking it robotically but not eating it. It sits mournfully on his lap and it's clear, without a lute or a bound notebook with him, that he'd been in the middle of nothing. Not like him at all.
His friend smells thickly of liquor, even to him. Stifling.] How was your walk?
no subject
Once he is released into the Coven's care, time edges along without much notice from himself. He's quiet, so uncharacteristically so, because he can think of nothing to say. No, he does not wish to speak on it. Could he know something important, that would lead to their further downfall? No. He wasn't spoken to often, and when he was there was no information.
He didn't ask questions. He didn't investigate. And now, released, it is so much more humiliating to know that. That he had sat there and accepted it. The most he'd done is scream. Kick the harpy who first came to take care of him, once. After that, he was too tired for any more.
Eventually, the Coven releases him; not, they emphasize, he was ever really held against his will. Because who would want to further spread the illness? (He remembered wanting exactly that, instinctually, down to his core. The need to spread it.) Jaskier simply doesn't argue. The... the growths are removed from him, the scar that had split opened gradually closed once again. His arm had been wrapped and rewrapped, squeezed until his blood went red again instead of black. Unfortunate that large chunks of his hair still remained black, the pigmentation permanently changed.
Ah, well. Shit and uphill and all that.
It takes him some time before he manages to go outdoors, but with having (fatefully) already moved into a manor with Geralt and Yennefer, a lovely, magicked garden has come along with it. He finds some solace there, though he made absolutely sure to ask Yennefer that there were no -- no growths there. That would remind him.
He looks up when he hears familiar heavy footfalls that, despite their familiarity, still leave his heart racing. He white-knuckles the stone bench underneath him until Geralt comes into view.
A flash of golden eyes. He shivers, swallowing it down. At least no vision follows it after. (Is that man, Brennan, still alive?)
Jaskier glances at the food, taking it robotically but not eating it. It sits mournfully on his lap and it's clear, without a lute or a bound notebook with him, that he'd been in the middle of nothing. Not like him at all.
His friend smells thickly of liquor, even to him. Stifling.] How was your walk?