Damn it, Jaskier! Why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it's you, shoveling it?

Jaskier is not one to hold a grudge.

Certainly, there have been people he disliked, over the years, and yes, perhaps a certain other musician's name might pop into his head in an instant if he believed himself to have, say, suddenly come into the power to wish someone dead. But he doesn't spend his time thinking about them. He gets on with his own very lovely life, thank you. Living well and all that.

And certainly, he's not going to hold a grudge over Geralt shouting at him. Geralt was obviously at the end of his rope, for whatever reason, and Jaskier will be the bigger man in this particular respect and leave the question of how that happened, or why there was the sudden absence of the less-than-fairer sex Geralt had been following around like a large, foolhardy, and pathetic, yes Geralt, pathetic puppy. Jaskier won't say a word about any of that, or about how he'd advised heading in the other direction as soon as they'd laid eyes on Yennefer, or really any number of things that just cry out for commentary. Not a word, because Jaskier is the bigger man.

But. Well, really! Geralt wouldn't have, could not in fact have ended up with a kid if he'd just pretended to be mute like Jaskier had told him to. Hard to insult destiny and get a completely deserved comeuppance without talking. And the djinn, Jaskier had been perfectly clear Geralt should have walked away from the crumbling tower and terrifying sorceress instead of into and also, repeatedly, into. And "these days", "these days", oh, Jaskier knew just how much shit Geralt had been in before "these days".

And it's not like Jaskier had helped out with that expecting... Well, all right, maybe he'd been expecting a bit of gratitude, at first. Before he knew Geralt. But it had also been about a challenge for himself, about proving he could do as much with his songs, and then the whole business with the elves, arguing to let Jaskier alone go, arguing with the elves for their own sake, and Jaskier had realized the man deserved to be known as someone other than the Butcher of Blaviken.

That's still true. Jaskier may not know, still, what truly happened in Blaviken, and yes, that may have more to do with a respect for the man's right hook and his own professional need for an unbruised diaphragm than a respect for Geralt's desire to keep mum on the subject, but he knows Geralt. Geralt may be a poor friend at times, really any time other than the sort of crisis where what you need is a man built like a bull and bristling with swords, but he's a good man, and he doesn't deserve to be spat on while he's risking his neck for people.

But.

Geralt has definitely been taking Jaskier, and far more importantly, Jaskier's work, for granted.

And Jaskier is not the sort of person to hold a grudge, but art?

Art is another matter.

So it's not for his own sake! Just in the name of illustrating a point, is all. In the name of art.