Falls

As the season trickled past in a steady march of warm days, the champagne-gold mare’s belly swelled with the growth of their unborn child. And Jaskier— Jaskier carried a heavy burden of his own, though not one that transformed him visibly. Wandering the island with Enya, he still smiled and laughed and even enticed his companion into the occasional dance. But when exhaustion inevitably claimed her, the brindle stallion’s worries settled over him like a dark cloud over the sun.

Jaskier followed her as he’d followed his soul-brother at the start of their journey— a piece of driftwood borne by the sea’s tides. Compliant to his very bones, it wasn’t in his nature to choose the course that they followed; it wasn't in him to lead. But the buckskin knew that his companion was not just exploring, but searching. Searching for a place to call their own, searching for a home with increasing desperation. And with every day that passed, he felt his shortcomings more keenly, a feeling only inflamed by his knowledge of Hyacinth’s fate. He’d already failed to protect his sister, and now he was failing again. Failing to protect the mare that carried his child, failing to provide for her.

Proving himself to be every bit as worthless as his birth-herd had judged him to be.

And so when he jolted awake to a clap of thunder and the cold emptiness of Enya’s absence, the striped male knew that her decision was for the best. She was right to leave him; to her he was only another burden. But even as he stared at the hollow her body had left in the grass, searching for the peace of acceptance, something unfamiliar stirred within him. With a determination fueled by desperation, he stumbled through the trees. Following the faint signs of her passage as the teardrops of rain gradually came to an end, and paying as little heed to the damp chill of his skin as the tentative birdsongs that wove their way through the lightening dawn. There was only one note that could reach him in the roiling storm of his emotions— and it came moments later, so soft at first that he might have dreamed it. But then her voice came again, and closer. Come and see what we have made.

Ever obedient, he came… and marveled at what he saw.

In his short life, Jaskier had never found cause to believe in himself; as Hyacinth had said numerous times, he couldn’t do anything right. But somehow, this boy who was half his was perfect. Breathless, disbelieving, he continued to drift toward the golden-bright pair to press his dark, trembling lips to Enya’s sweat-dampened neck. Exhaling gently into her skin, and sorting through the tangled threads of his emotions to find the single glowing ember beneath the ash of his fears and doubts.

"I love you," he murmured - not certain whether what he felt was real, but wanting it to be more than he'd ever wanted anything else.