cultor | CLOSED | But We Climbed So

Entry tags:

CLOSED | But We Climbed So

Who: Jaskier (

merged)
What: Upon waking in the city once more, Jaskier seeks out Sharon to tell her of his meeting with One in the dream.
When: After waking from the collective dream in June.
Where: Around! Depends on where he finds her.
Warnings: Character specific warnings, will update as needed.

He finds himself in this city again - it looks different from when he was there last, but broadly the same. So alien to anything Jaskier is used to. It sounds like some fantastical story.

And now he needs to find someone. Multiple someones, but he can look for them at the same time, given he only has broad strokes of where to look.

The murmur seems... strange. Weaker? Or perhaps Jaskier is just out of practice. It's not long after his questions that he sets out. He should focus on seeing if his old haunts are still in one piece. If there's any food stashed away there. But his heart is far hungrier, and that's the one Jaskier has always been terrible at ignoring.

He has no tether to Sharon - none to anyone anymore. But he's not from a world with cellphones and GPS and status updates. This is how Jaskier is used to finding people - walking. Searching. Asking anyone he comes across if they've seen her recently, if they know where she is staying. Finding any old haunts she frequented when he was there last.

He'll find her or his other quarry, he's determined.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sharon spots Jaskier before he spots her, and despite the haze of grief weighing on her mind, she makes a beeline for him, weaving across the street in a short jog. She doesn't look much different than she does in the dream, though her hair has become an unruly mess, and deep shadows hang beneath her glassy, red-rimmed eyes. Her olive-green coat hangs open, revealing a worn white leather vest layered over a dark hoodie. A heavy backpack bulges against her shoulder, stuffed to the brim with everything she needs for her arcade, along with a healthy bottle of alcohol she's fully intending to crack open before long.

"Shit, look who made it back." She tries to smile, but it never reaches her eyes, and she doesn't have the strength to force it. She's barely holding herself together.

Normally Jaskier is much slower, more careful about touching people - especially those who seem like they have a bad history of it. This is so much grief worn on the sleeve though, and Jaskier could not stop himself even if he wanted to, closing that distance between them to sweep her up in another hug. Like in the dream, that desperate need to confirm another person is real.

He's real. He's here.

He looks different again, though. Still clearly the same type though it seems like some others Jaskier's dream self is the most dramatic version of what he could look like... maybe will eventually look like. Fully clothed, with boots on - all it looks like is the antlers, and even then those are the smaller ones of a yearling rather than the glorious rack of a fully mature adult. The scent of something musk and wild at the edges of his presence, but that could easily be carried from home. And always, his lute with him.

There's also what appears to be a deep burgundy cloth wrapped around his forehead as well as though an unstylish headband, though the bit of red dried and crusted under the edge suggests it's for another reason.

"Would you believe I'm glad for it? Truly?" Jaskier asks, voice soft.

Sharon doesn't hesitate to return Jaskier's hug, stepping into it without a second thought, her fingers curling tightly into the fabric of his outer layer. After so much loss, seeing him here again feels like an unexpected gift. Someone she cares about came back. How could she greet him with anything less than open arms? She holds onto him for an almost embarrassingly long time before finally forcing herself to let go, leaning back just enough to take in his new form with her mismatched gaze, one eye a brilliant, inhuman pink.

He doesn't look quite the way he did in the dream. His antlers are smaller now, less imposing than before, but he might grow into them. Most Offerings change as time goes.

"I don't know, Jaskier. That sounds like something an insane man would say," she replies, her voice tight around the edges. Then again, she'd probably say the same thing if someone had torn her away from Manhattan. For all the grief it's brought her, she's met more people there who've loved her—and whom she's loved in return—than she had in her entire goddamn life.

She reaches up, her fingertips lightly brushing against the headband, eyes catching on the old crust of blood. "You okay?"

There is no such thing as too long for an embrace at meeting a friend again, in Jaskier's opinion, and he lets Sharon set the pace for it, taking in the sight of her once she pulls back. She looks so different, it makes him wonder if he's misremembering, or if she has been changed by being here. Probably the latter.

He still smiles a little at her gentle accusation of insanity. She's not wrong. But he also gets the sense that she understands what he means.

... Even if he has few people left here, too. If he can help, he'd rather be here to help.

There's only the slightest wince at her fingertips touching at the blood - not because of injury but rather how tightly it's stuck to skin now. His expression turns a little wry.

"It was not a peaceful time when I left my home this time. My companions and I were making an exit from a war camp when a fight broke out, and I didn't duck in time. I'm almost healed, and there's no infection."

As awful as Regis' way of phrasing that had been, it was a relief to know.

Sharon reflexively grimaces the moment he winces, pulling her hand back as though she'd been burned. A sympathetic shiver runs down her spine. The last time she'd taken a hit to the head, she'd ended up with a serious concussion. Even now, the headaches still come back to haunt her.

"You should get it looked at. I know you said it's almost healed, but almost isn't is." She frowns, unable to hide the concern in her voice. The last thing she wants is to watch an old injury become something worse in a city where she's seen fungus bloom from open wounds. Jaskier needs every advantage he can get if he's going to survive here, even if staying healthy won't stop whatever force keeps whisking him away. "Glad to hear it didn't take you out, though." A small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "That'd be a pretty shitty way for the bard to go out."

Jaskier makes a non-committal sound to being told he should get it looked at. Were there dedicated healers here now? He supposed he might find them if there were. If only by coincidence with his searching.

"It would be quite embarrassing, given all else I've lived through," Jaskier agrees with a wry smile. "Speaking of - I wanted to tell you. I found One in the dream before we woke. I'm... I'm going to see if I can find him again in the city. I wanted someone to know in case things go badly."

Sharon straightens at the mention of One, eyes widening. "And how was he? Did it seem like things could go badly if you run into him here?" The questions tumble out before she can stop them.

She knows she'd gotten painfully lucky when she confronted One herself. The air around him had been suffocating, thick with the sense that something fundamental was changing inside him, something dangerous. It could have gone so much worse than it did. But Jaskier's relationship with One is different from her own. She can only hope that makes every encounter less dangerous.

"It was like you said. He had antlers now, so many eyes, it was like he was shedding... that black substance was all around him. He was so careful not to touch me with it, even in the dream," Jaskier said, heart aching at the memory before adding quietly, "He thought I was just a figment."

But could he really blame One for that assumption? Who had not seen people they loved in the dream only to wake and find them absent from this reality?

"I think I convinced him it was really me by the end. He told me he was afraid - of the darkness, the void within, but -- that even if he didn't face it, it seemed likely to kill him... I told him he had to be very brave then, and that I believed in him. I took his hand, too, and the darkness swallowed us both up. Then I awoke here."

But pointedly ... no worse for wear. Changed, certainly, but he had already been changed in the dream, before he met One. And his injury that he now sports came from home, not here. Swallowed by the black, but none seemed to linger on him.

"He would never bring me harm if it was his choice, I believe that. But I don't know if my being unaffected by that darkness was because it was in the dream or not. It's a risk."

Jaskier has her full attention as he recounts everything he'd experienced. The antlers. The strange black substance. The eyes. Every matching detail knots tighter in her chest, making it very clear. He was changing. He is changing. And he's still afraid.

The darkness swallowed him. She remembers Aven telling them the abomination in the dream had eaten One, and that was how the dream ended. Does the same thing happen to him every time? Does every dream end with him being consumed?

"You're right, it's a risk, even for you." Even for someone One clearly trusts, at least to some degree. "But I don't think he'll..." She pauses, trying to piece together what little she understands. "Not unless he gets too emotional. All right, just keep him calm. Pay attention to how hot it gets. Hotter means... badder. Uh..."

She reaches out and rests a hand on his arm, her expression turning earnest. "And please be careful. Back out if it feels wrong. You just got here, and I don't..." Her voice falters. "I really can't lose any more people right now."

Jaskier nods as Sharon bestows her own knowledge on Jaskier in return, listening, committing the suggestions to memory.

He can't not go. Can't not look for One, even if there's a danger in finding him. Even so, his expression softens further at Sharon's request to take care.

"Ah... here I was going to say I'm the perfect one to go after him because there's hardly anyone who will miss me should something happen," he says, a sad smile on his face. He's got two tethers already - the joys of being easy - but they're fragile connections and for all Jaskier knows they won't last. No one to truly be left in a lurch should the worst occur. So he leans in and presses a light kiss to Sharon's forehead, more familial than romantic. "I'll not take any unnecessary risks. Because you asked."

Sharon's expression tightens at the admission, her lower lip catching hard between her teeth. But when Jaskier leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead, some of that tension quietly melts away. He's only just come back, and while she can't honestly say they've ever been especially close, she's carrying so much grief already that the thought of losing yet another familiar face feels unbearable.

She nods quickly, partially relieved. "Plus, I don't—I don't think One could handle accidentally hurting someone else. He's at the end of his rope."

The words come softly, her gaze dropping for a moment. As much as her own fears ache inside her, she knows that might matter even more. One carrying the weight of hurting someone else could be the thing that finally breaks him, and Sharon isn't sure he'd survive that kind of guilt. Or if they would.

Jaskier wears his heart on his sleeve, he always seeks out connections wherever he goes. But the people he gravitates towards the most are the ones who hold themselves apart, who take work to get to know. Not so much a problem back home aside from the constant danger of being left behind, but a little more troublesome here when such unequal connections can have dire consequences.

If he's left in a lurch for it, well. It happens. He's not going to change who he is.

(He'd find a way to fuck up a connection that would like him just as much, if past history is a predictor of future outcomes.)

"That's a very astute point I hadn't considered," Jaskier admits. He's not even saying that to be nice - a fragile state One is in, he's already so upset for the hurt he's caused unintentionally. Adding more to it... He pats her arm, lets his hand rest there if she doesn't mind. "I'll be careful. Should the worst happen, I'll have to hope someone can tell him I would not blame him. But I will be careful."

Sharon doesn't shift away from Jaskier's touch. If anything, she seems to lean into it, appreciating it. Her heart is too sore to deny something as important to her as touch. "I'm going to hold you to that, Jaskier."

And she means it. If he gets himself sent away or killed, she'll make him regret it. Somehow, someway, even if it's just because he broke her heart.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

CLOSED | But We Climbed So

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

🎀 probably can wrap here!