Common

It wasn’t until the words had tumbled from his mouth that Jaskier witnessed the pain they were capable of inflicting— and by then, it was too late to take them back. Dark lips twisting downward, he echoed his companion’s gesture of despair, squeezing his eyes briefly shut. He hadn’t meant to be cruel, but seasons spent in Enya’s company— and another with the uncouth lot that called the Lagoon home— had buried his empathy beneath a thick layer of dust. It was difficult to be sentimental in a world where nothing at all yielded; difficult to remember that not everyone was made of stone. Some— like him— were only sun-hardened clay pretending to be what no amount of tempering could forge into greatness. And some were like soil: soft and yielding, but infinitely precious. Because without them, there would be no life at all— only the endless clashing of rock against rock until nothing but dust remained.

At the sound of her voice, the brindle’s gaze flitted open again, meeting the wounded anger in the mare’s before they darted away. Watching shadows dance across the snow instead, and hearing the wounds that lay beneath her angry words. How could he not? Jaskier knew what it was to feel inadequate, to fall short of the standards that others met so easily. Beneath the front of his confidence and despite his age, he was still very much a boy trying to carry a stallion’s burden. Before he’d left his mother and his home, he’d never thought to grow up; there hadn’t been reason to be. Now, it felt like the entire world was falling on his shoulders all at once, and he staggered beneath the weight. He screwed up, did what he could to rally his strength, and screwed up again. Simple things, too, small things— like a simple conversation with a stranger.

Why couldn’t he have settled for an uncomplicated hello? Or better yet, held his silence and her peace.

By now he was determined to flee as boys were wont to do, to hide from the pain of his failure in some far-flung place until the raw ache of it was soothed. But before his first step was made, the buckskin felt a feather-light touch brush his shoulder, and froze. And though he was not brave enough— not yet— to turn and face the roan mare, his ears tipped backwards to catch the soft hum of her voice. The plea to stay was a stark contrast to everything else they’d shared… and another layer of secrets peeled back, baring more and somehow less at the same time. Knowing that this creature preferred the companionship of someone who had already hurt her— however unintentionally— to solitude only opened more questions. Such as why, and whether her words meant that she was choosing to forgive him.

Choosing to give him a second chance, like the one he’d been granted in coming to the islands.

“Okay,” the young male agreed, settling back on his haunches and letting his eyes skim her face briefly. She wasn’t looking at him, and— taking his cues from the uncomfortable language of her body— Jaskier let his own gaze drift up into the heavens. Feeling seconds tick by in the quickened pulse of his heart, and sensing that this time he’d been given was finite. That if he didn’t say something, the slender woman would slip away from him, literally or figuratively or perhaps even both. “It isn’t easy,” he finally began, a note of vulnerability where there had been none before. “Finding something worthwhile, that is. Fighting for it. But I— I’d be happy to help you, if you’d welcome my company for a time. Our kind...we’re stronger together, and there’s no shame in that.” The striped male glanced at her again, the ghost of a smile warming his expression. “I can’t promise I won’t say something else stupid, but you held your own well enough. Put me back in my place. And there’s nothing wrong with that, either.”

A pause, the nervous flutter of nostrils and ears and chest. “I’m Jaskier. You?”