Chapter Text
Later, Jaskier would curse how lenient he had grown in the months since he had initially run away. He truly hadn't thought it would be an issue if he wandered into a town just a hair too close to his father's lands. There had been a local fair, and he’d wanted to seize the opportunity to earn some extra coin – maybe learn some new songs, find a pretty woman or handsome man’s bed to share for the night.
He only recognized his folly when he awoke rather abruptly from a sound sleep to find the woman he’d bedded gone and a contingent of de Lettenhove guards in her place. Naturally he fought, but he was no match for several men in armor with weapons. In due time, Jaskier was literally being dragged into his hated household home and dropped before his parents.
"As you wished, my Lord," one of the men said. Jaskier didn't recognize him, not that it would have mattered if he did. These men were in his father’s employ, and didn’t really care about anything else.
"Leave us," Earl de Lettenhove said coldly. He stared down at his son with a blank expression which was almost more frightening than rage. Not for the first time, Jaskier found himself pulling uselessly at his bonds. But he couldn't get free. His arms and hands were tied too tightly. He tried to speak, but the gag that had been shoved into his mouth was too large and too solid. He couldn't do anything but grunt weakly.
The guards left, taking the air in the room with them. Jaskier's throat felt dry. He had never wanted this moment to happen. And now that it was, he didn't know what to think or say. He had not seriously thought about his parents in weeks. Time had not changed his father. Earl de Lettenhove looked no kinder nor more understanding than he had the night that Jaskier had finally had enough and fled.
"Are we ready then? Time is short." Near the fireplace, Countess de Lettenhove finally stood. Her gown rustled around her as she moved. She looked across the room at her husband, eyes skating over her captive son like he wasn't there.
"Yes. Bring in Gael," Earl de Lettenhove said.
Gael? Jaskier's mind raced, trying to place the name, but it meant nothing. He could think of no one in his parent’s employ by that name. But Countess de Lettenhove seemed to know exactly who the earl was referrign to; she walked across the room, stepping around her son's body, and left.
Earl de Lettenhove knelt, gripping Jaskier's chin and forcing his head up at a painful angle so their eyes met. "We've finally found a use for you, boy," he said softly. His fingers dug into Jaskier's flesh, no doubt leaving behind bruises.
All Jaskier could do was grunt angrily in response even as he thought a myriad of unkind things that would have surely had him whipped or worse f his father possessed the ability to read minds. He wished he could speak, or spit, or lash out, or do anything other than lay here helplessly. His arms burned when he jerked against his bounds, ropes rubbing his skin raw.
Countess de Lettenhove returned, bearing with her a man in heavy robes that shielded his face. Jaskier couldn't help a muffled, startled exclamation when the man - Gael, presumably - waved a hand in his direction. Jaskier's body rose with the motion of that hand, rising effortlessly into the air. Gael twitched two fingers and Jaskier's body flew over to the floor before the fireplace. He grunted in pain as his body was dropped from about two feet of height, hitting the floor hard enough to take his breath away.
Gael approached.
Jaskier badly wanted to run, but he couldn't. Even if he’d somehow managed to get his bounds untied, his body suddenly felt heavy - impossibly heavy. As though someone had weighted him down with stones. He couldn’t even muster the strength to sit up.
"He'll do nicely. His body is unmarked by magic," Gael said. His voice was rough, deep, and full of anticipation. A chill ran down Jaskier's spine and, though he couldn't have said why, he looked to his parents.
Earl de Lettenhove was smiling with the same anticipation.
As for Countess de Lettenhove... Her eyes, the same eyes that Jaskier saw every time he looked into water, were cold. Her mouth was set into a thin line. She watched as dispassionately as though she was watching a butcher handle a dead fowl.
Jaskier had already known that his parents wouldn’t help him, but somehow it still hurt.
Gael waved his hand again and suddenly, Jaskier's clothes were gone. He was naked as the day he was born. When he looked up again, he saw that Gael held a knife.
Where had the knife come from?
Jaskier didn't know. But that was all his panicked thoughts could focus on as the knife bit deeply into his flesh.
He screamed. He screamed a lot, until his throat wouldn't allow him to scream anymore, and still the knife continued. Gael was slow and methodical. Every slash of the knife was followed by a potion that glowed an eerie blue in the firelight. The potion was poured into every cut, and each time it burned like someone had dropped a coal on him instead.
For a moment Gael stopped, and Jaskier dared to hope it was over – but then his body was flipped over. He drooled and wept into the rug as the same process was repeated across his back. No place was spare. His shoulders, neck, arms, all up and down his back, his buttocks, thighs, legs, and feet. For every cut that had been made on the front, another was made on his back followed by that damnable potion.
By the time it was over, hundreds of small cuts had been made all over Jaskier's body and he wanted to die. But he did not die, not even when Gael flipped him back over. Gael knelt over his face, made one last knife cut across his forehead, and then poured the remainder of the potion all over Jaskier's face.
It burned.
Jaskier’s voice had given out, but his mouth opened anyway in a soundless scream. Some of the potion crept in around the rags and went down his throat.
His body went limp.
"It is done," Gael announced.
Something changed. It took Jaskier a long time to realize that it was the ropes binding his arms and legs: they had somehow vanished. He tried to lunge upwards, to run, but his body refused to obey his orders.
"Sit up," Earl de Lettenhove commanded.
Jaskier's body obediently sat up.
"Stand," Earl de Lettenhove said, sounding delighted, and Jaskier's body stood.
Inside his mind, voiceless, Jaskier yelled as loud and as hard as he could. A flurry of curses towards both his parents, damning the both of them in every creative way that he could think of. But not a sound escaped his body's lips, and this time it had nothing to do with his throat.
The de Lettenhoves smiled.
Three days later, the Earl and Countess de Lettenhove, their four children, and several other guards and household members made the journey to the King’s castle. Jaskier's body sat in stony silence, not reacting to anything, while the remainder of his family laughed and spoke with each other as though nothing was wrong.
Trapped inside his mind, Jaskier was also reduced to silence. He had screamed, he'd cried, he'd raged, and nothing had made a difference. Gael's hold on his body was far too strong. There was nothing he could do but watch and wait to see what their plan was. It was absolutely infuriating, and he wanted nothing more than to retaliate, but he was literally a prisoner inside his own body. He watched dully as his body left the carriage, formally greeted the king, went to their rooms, dressed for dinner, attended the dinner, and retired for the night.
He watched as they all rose the next morning.
He watched as they attended court for the day.
He watched as that night, his body got up, retrieved a knife, and crept out the door.
He was going to die.
The thought settled over him with a kind of heavy calm as his body walked through the castle. He did not know where his body was going, or even what he was supposed to be doing, until his body reached a door. The door swung open as though by magic - well, who was Jaskier kidding? It was absolutely magic. Gael had to be somewhere nearby, though Jaskier couldn't even control his head enough to turn to see if that was true.
Inside the room was a bed, and inside that bed was a man.
Jaskier's body stepped towards the bed, knife held aloft.
No.
Jaskier slammed up against the boundaries, trying as hard as he could to just move his fingers. To open his fingers and let the knife fall to the floor. But his hand would not respond to his commands, and his feet kept moving. His body crept closer to the bed.
Who was in that bed?
He didn't know.
It didn't matter.
No matter who it, he didn't want to kill someone.
He didn't want to be a murderer.
With everything that he had left, Jaskier screamed.
"Stop."
The voice came from behind him; there was a sudden, great force and then Jaskier's body was sent flying across the room. He hit the wall and then fell to the floor. Caught off guard by the pain, Jaskier fell quiet and stunned. His body lay on the ground without moving. Through his body's half-open eyes, Jaskier saw a woman. She was tall and hauntingly beautiful, with long, dark hair, and she looked furious.
From the bed came a tall, big man with hair as pale as the moonlight flowing in through the window. His expression was blank, but there was a familiar glitter of anger in his eyes too. Both the man and the woman moved towards his body.
So this was how he would die.
"I have to admit, I expected a better attempt than this," said the woman, standing over Jaskier's body.
The man behind her grunted.
The woman seemed to take this as acknowledgment of her statement because she smiled. Jaskier felt ill when he saw the way her hands glittered with violet magic. Inside his mind, he began to cry for the unfairness of it all. The woman began to kneel down towards him, then paused.
"What is it?" the man said. His voice was deep.
For a few seconds the woman remained silent. Her eyes were locked onto Jaskier's body. Then she reached down suddenly and pulled his sleeve up. She hissed under her breath when she saw the state of his arms: the numerous cuts, all of which still glowed faintly with the effect of the blue portion.
"This is not what I thought at all," she said, and then she reached for Jaskier's head. The moment her hand touched his forehead, Jaskier knew no more.