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Geralt is a Witcher. The difference between a witcher and a human is like the difference between a wolf and a dog: a hundred pounds of muscle, a set of fangs, and a willingness to kill.
Like a wild animal, Geralt is supposed to have enhanced instincts, almost a premonition before danger. Geralt should have felt this way before meeting Jaskier. There’s a small chance that the roiling of his stomach was a warning, but he’d attributed it to the piss-poor ale. Still, Geralt has never been so under-informed of danger by his mutations than when he met Jaskier.
Jaskier confuses Geralt. He’s been traveling around towns and villages as a bard with seemingly no protection. When pelted with bread by townspeople, Jaskier thanks them. When Jaskier meets a stranger, he immediately tries to brag, befriend or bed them, sometimes in unexpected permutations. Jaskier has no backup plan for violence or malintent from his fellow humans, and barely a plan for monsters.
Jaskier seems to have a mutation: no fear.
Obscurity.
One fear. Still human.
Geralt should have realized long before Jaskier tried to tsk-tsk to a hirikka the way a child would to a street cat.
(Although to be fair to Jaskier, the bard had better instincts than a knight, so maybe Geralt was being too harsh.)
No, he should have realized when Jaskier wanted to behold and befriend the goat-faced satyr. Still Jaskier had only considered escape, not violence after waking from unconsciousness, bruised and tied up. Geralt should have known from their first misadventure. Some part of his mutations should have warned Geralt of the danger that Jaskier seemed to not only attract but seek out. Something should have warned Geralt about Jaskier.
