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The first problem of the day was Geralt and Yennefer leaving Ciri and Jaskier alone to go get supplies. Truly, they should have known Ciri would react poorly to being left behind, as she always did when Geralt and Yennefer did something "for her protection". Which led to the second problem of the day—Ciri trying to fix the problem with magic. She has the brilliant idea to try out this spell in the book Yennefer gave her, that would allow her to switch hair colors with Jaskier, so that neither would look so noticeable and they could maybe all go into the next town together.
Jaskier reluctantly agrees, figuring the worst that could happen is maybe getting his hair set on fire or something.
Except, well…
The spell doesn’t end up switching their hair colors.
No, instead, Jaskier blinks, surprised to find the world a fair bit bigger than it was before, his hands smaller, and wow, he feels pretty great, actually—
Which he immediately feels poorly about when he sees that the person standing across from him—in his body—has to be none other than—
“How do you—Jaskier, why does everything hurt?!” Jaskier—Ciri—whines, using his voice, which is—
Ciri plops to the ground, instantly breathing a sigh of relief at giving her aching feet a rest. And yeah, fair, because Jaskier did in fact want to do that most nights, had done that most nights, back before the mountain. Before he'd realized being a bard didn't mean he had to be so dramatic all the time, and that everyone would appreciate if he would just...tone everything down.
"Sorry about that," Jaskier says, wincing when his voice comes out higher than he was used to. "It shouldn't be for long, though. Hopefully Yennefer—"
"No!" Ciri shouts emphatically, sitting up with wide eyes. "I wasn't even supposed to be practicing without her here, and if she finds out what happened, she'll never let me go anywhere again!" She exclaims, arms pinwheeling.
"Please, Jaskier, just—we can pretend, right? Just for a week, while my—your—powers recharge." She suggests, giving Jaskier his own puppy dog eyes, which, honestly doesn't do much for him for the obvious reasons. Seemingly sensing this, she wilts a bit, adding, " And then you can try it, say the words and everything, and if it doesn't work, then...then, we can get Yennefer involved."
Jaskier stares at the girl—man—and winces. It was one thing for him to take the princess's place, to pretend for the next seven days that he was the pseudo-daughter of Geralt and Yennefer. But to have her take his role, too...
"Ciri, this isn't a good idea. You don't—I don't—"
Jaskier's mouth slams shut as Ciri hisses at him, and the bard realizes that Yennefer and Geralt have just stepped through the sound and visual wards the mage had put up before the pair left. He takes in Ciri's wide, pleading eyes, and sighs a bit under his breath. Then he nods, finding little comfort in the look of pure relief the girl gives him, which is quickly masked as Geralt and Yennefer come into the small clearing.
Taking one final second to collect himself, he turns around with a small smile on his face.
This was going to be disastrous.
~•~
In Ciri's defense, she did a lot better than the bard had thought she would, truthfully. She didn't complain about not being able to ride Roach like usual, or the thinner, scratchy bedroll, or even the fact that she now had a two or three hour shift at night where she was meant to watch for danger. It was, truthfully, rather impressive, even if Jaskier was helping her out by insisting they take more breaks throughout the week and sharing more of his food with her when Geralt and Yennefer weren't looking. Every time he helped her, though, she gave him and the others a look he couldn't quite decipher, beyond it not being a very happy one.
Still, Jaskier should have known his luck wouldn't hold. The bard used up all his luck in large, miraculous events every few years or so, and payed for it, it seemed, with the worst luck known to man the rest of the time. Which is why, on the fifth day of being in Ciri's body, he was horrified to find that they were surrounded by bandits, and Geralt and Yennefer had placed themselves between him and the threat. It was their usual formation when facing trouble, but the problem was now—
Jaskier curses as he ducks under Geralt's arm, grabbing a large stick as he races to Ciri's side, where she was trying to hold off two larger, burly men with the singular dagger Jaskier owned. He raises the branch as high as he can, using the element of surprise to bludgeon one of the men, sending him unconscious to the forest floor at the same moment Ciri manages to fatally stab the other attacker.
For a moment, their eyes dart wildly around the small battlefield, only breathing a sigh of relief when they realize Geralt was swiftly dealing with the last man. And then, Jaskier finds himself with his arms full of—well, himself, which would honestly never not be weird—rubbing Ciri's back in a smooth, repetitive manner as she breaths harshly. He was tempted to pull back, to check if she had any injuries he hadn't seen, but she seemed okay.
Still, this whole mess had gone on long enough. He opens his mouth, about to insist she tell the other two what had happened—
"Ciri, what was that?!"
Jaskier blinks as Ciri finally lets him go with one last deep inhalation. He stares at Yennefer for a moment, trying to figure out—
"You don't—you leave the fighting to the adults." Geralt says, voice low in his reprimand, which—oh. Right.
Jaskier swallows, nodding, which seemed to ease the tension in both Yennefer and Geralt as they both quickly inspected him for injuries. This was normal, and—and Jaskier could pretend for a couple more days, he decides reluctantly as Yennefer fussed over the small scrapes in his hands from holding too tightly to the wood. The odds of there being two groups of bandits in the same area were low, and this particular forest didn't have many monsters in it as far as he could remember, so—
Jaskier stares as Ciri swears, loudly, a long sentence or two that was, honestly, just pure filth. There were words in there he was pretty sure he'd never actually used before, which he found rather impressive, truthfully. He'd have to ask her where—
"Jaskier and I accidentally switched bodies five days ago," Ciri says, once she was apparently done with swearing.
And—yeah, okay, Jaskier supposes almost dying would put certain things like youthful pride and being grounded into perspective. Jaskier carefully disentangles himself from a now-frozen Yennefer and Geralt as Ciri speaks about what happened, and why they hadn't told either of them the truth. He links his arm with Ciri in silent support as she explains, proud of her for not only admitting to her mistake but also being willing to accept whatever punishment they saw fit to give her.
"Ciri, while you should have respected my instruction—" Yennefer turns her eyes to Jaskier, then, expression going noticeably colder. "It was Jaskier's job to ensure you obeyed it. He is the adult in this situation, not you."
Jaskier does his best not to wince under her ire, to shrink in on himself—
"No." Ciri hisses, voice suddenly much firmer and angrier than it was only a second ago. "You don't get to talk to him like that, to—to—"
And then, of all things, the former princess of Cintra growls.
"I have spent the last five days living as Jaskier, and I can honestly say that if I were him, I'd have sold you both out to Nilfgaard ages ago."
Geralt and Yennefer flinch, hard. Even Jaskier baulks at her words, wondering what on earth she was—
"You don't let him a ride on either of the horses, even though Yennefer and I could easily give him a turn—"Ciri says, holding up a finger. "Not to mention you make him keep watch at night, and then don't let him have a rest on one of the horses like Yennefer does. And you don't—"
"Ciri—"
"—you don't give him enough food, either." Ciri continues, electing to ignore Jaskier tugging at his own doublet to get her to stop as she holds up a third finger. "You give him the smallest portion of all of us, even though he spends the whole day walking!" She practically shrieks, and then—as if her words weren't bad enough—
"Look!" She cries, holding up Jaskier's chemise to show off his visible ribs. "It's like a wolf in his stomach, constantly gnawing away! It would make it impossible to sleep, if every day wasn't so incredibly exhausting." Ciri says, voice suddenly infused with the kind of bone-deep weariness that spoke of days, weeks, perhaps even months or years in the making.
Yet somehow, she finds the energy to stand tall, hands fisted as she says, "then you don't even defend him. When he's exhausted, and hungry, and thirsty more often than not, too, in case I didn't mention that. No, instead you both crowd around—well, around me, and expect the human bard to somehow defend himself with—with this!" Ciri shrieks, holding up the small, still-bloodied dagger.
There was complete silence for a moment, as Ciri breaths heavily, no one willing to interrupt her if she wasn't finished.
Finally, Ciri says, voice suddenly defeated, "and I never knew. I never noticed, the way you—the way we—treat him. It's not—I can't—"
Jaskier steps forward and pulls Ciri into a tight hug before he even realizes he is moving, the instinct to protect-comfort-soothe a strong pull he doesn't even try to resist. He lets her head rest on top of his own, ignoring how strange it felt to be hugging himself.
"Ciri, it's not...I'm okay. Really," he insists quietly, running his hands through the long brown strands. "I'm an adult. I don't—"
"If we hadn't switched bodies, you would have died today, Jaskier." Ciri says, voice choked as she bites back a sob.
Jaskier swallows hard, not sure what he could say to that. "I'm a better fighter than I seem," he comments lightly, trying to ease her guilt and pain. "Really. Why, there was this one time—"
"Please, don't—"
Jaskier bites his lip as something close to a whine comes from Ciri's—from his mouth, a sound he vaguely recognizes as one from those long nights spent alone after the dragon hunt. It was a wounded sort of noise, and not one Jaskier would ever make willingly in front of anyone else, if it was still him in his own body.
It doesn't surprise him to find two extra pairs of arms loop around Ciri, then, to try to offer whatever silent comfort they could. They stand there long enough for the birds to begin chirping again, for the smell of iron in the air to fade some despite the bodies still on the ground.
When they do move again, the first thing that happens is Yennefer demanding Ciri show her what spell they used, and switching them back almost immediately. It is unpleasantly jarring to be thrown back into his aching, tired body, but Jaskier merely plasters a grin on his face and quickly goes to grab his lute from where it had hung off of Roach's haunch for the past five days.
(He resolutely is not thinking about the fact that no one had noticed that he—that Ciri—hadn't sung or played a single note in that time. As if music wasn't such an integral part of his very being, that he could just turn it off for apparently no reason and have neither Yennefer nor Geralt sense something was wrong.
Pushing back the hurt as he went through familiar chord progressions, Jaskier debates mentally if it was worth lecturing the other two adults on their lack of awareness. If they didn't pay attention to him even a bit, it would be all too easy for him to be replaced by a Doppler or a disguised spy, and they would be none the wiser. They would—he would be replaced, and it would take days, weeks, maybe months for them to notice, and by then there would—there would likely be nothing left of him to even find.
Jaskier swallows hard, suddenly, not all that hungry anymore.)
As Geralt and Yennefer dispose of the bodies, and they travel farther away from the scene of the fight, Jaskier thinks that that was it. That despite the very strange five days and Ciri's rant, everything is finally going back to normal.
Except that doesn't, exactly, happen.
What does happen is Yennefer magicking Jaskier onto her own horse a couple hours later, claiming she wanted to stretch her legs, and giving the bard little choice except to cling to her black mare. What also happens is Jaskier getting double his usual portion of rabbit when dinner comes around, Geralt muttering something about having caught more today. But perhaps most surprising of all, is when Jaskier wakes not to being shaken for his turn at night watch, but to bright sunlight streaming through the branches above him, signaling it was far later in the day than they usually break camp.
When he sits up, he notices Geralt quietly sharpening Jaskier's own dagger, Ciri and Yennefer bent over the book the princess had found the incantation in, quietly discussing where Ciri went wrong. All three look at him when he moves, and he has to force himself not to flinch under their eyes, unused to such attention these days.
"It seems I missed my shift," Jaskier says, feeling wrong-footed. "I suppose I'll just take over the shift for whoever covered for me tonight, if that's okay? I can—"
"Jaskier," Ciri says, voice her usual strong lilt once more. Jaskier fell silent as she went to their packs, taking out some jerky and dried bread and forcing it into his hands.
She stares hard at him with narrowed eyes until he reluctantly starts eating, mildly surprised at how hungry he was despite the fact he usually didn't eat until at least midday. Which, he supposes as he takes a final bite of bread, it nearly was, what with how late he'd apparently slept.
Seriously, why hadn't they—
"I meant what I said yesterday," Ciri continues, nodding once when she sees he'd eaten everything. It was, simultaneously, both the sweetest and most demeaning act of care he's been shown in a long time.
Still, Jaskier really ought to nip this in the bud. "Ciri, sweet princess, mischievous, fierce lion cub—I'm fine. Truly. There's nothing for you to—to worry, or fret about with me. Really, I—"
"Jaskier, you should know I could feel both of you when I switched you back," Yennefer interrupts this time, an expression on her face Jaskier can't quite read. He would have thought it held something like concern, if it had been directed at Ciri, but it—that wasn't an emotion the mage ever felt towards the bard.
"It wasn't...pleasant," the mage says, a small grimace on her face.
Jaskier tries not to bristle. It's not as if it was his fault that she'd been forced to feel such a thing, when all along he'd just been trying to help Ciri, to—
"Tired humans get sick easier," Geralt says, interrupting Jaskier's trail of thought. "Hurt, too."
The bard's brows scrunch up for a moment as he tries to parse the witcher's words. That almost sounded like—if Jaskier wasn't mistaken—
Jaskier fights hard not to smile at what his two emotionally constipated traveling partners are trying to say without outright putting it into words. He relaxes a bit, letting go of tension he didn't even realize he'd been holding as he basks a bit in the knowledge that—that Geralt and Yennefer did care, they just—just hadn't known. Hadn't been aware that Jaskier has been struggling so much, horribly terrific actor that he was.
He bites back a yawn as he makes eye contact with Ciri again, letting himself match her small grin. It seemed she, too, understood what the others weren't able to say, and found it equally amusing.
But then, horribly mischievous child that she is, she turns to Geralt.
"He's still tired."
Jaskier splutters at her words. "I am not. Really, I slept so much last night, best rest I've gotten in ages!" He insists fervently, well aware of the way that amber eyes were examining him far too closely right now.
He stands up, moving to fold up his bedroll, when one hand grabs his shoulder gently and he notices another—
"Somne."
Jaskier sags instantly, and would have fallen painfully to the floor if he didn't suddenly find the arm on his shoulder wrapped around his back entirely. He blinks slowly up into familiar golden orbs as he is lowered back to his bedroll, thoughts like a fly stuck in honey.
He tries saying something, maybe about how witcher signs were cheating, but Geralt merely huffs a small laugh as Jaskier finds himself fully reclined again. He thinks the witcher is saying something else, but it is too distant for Jaskier to make out, and all at once the bard feels himself drifting off into the velvety ink of sleep.