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The bard was getting on Geralt’s nerves again.
This was not, as it was, a particularly unusual turn of events, but circumstances - above all else - ensured that his antics were particularly unwelcome, given that Geralt was trying to complete a contract, and the bard would not stop pestering him, distracting him, and generally getting in Geralt’s way as he made the biggest possible nuisance he could out of himself.
The contract itself was nothing out of the ordinary - it was the fact that he hadn’t been able to lose Jaskier before setting out, that was the problem.
Usually, he’d have left the bard behind, at a tavern, or an inn, but this time, Jaskier had latched onto him before he could walk away without him and wouldn’t be convinced to just leave, which was how Geralt ended up with a stream of running commentary as he did his best to figure out what was terrorising the locals without also contracting a massive headache.
“So, what do you think it is?”
And now, the bard was starting his customary yammering about monsters he knew fuck-all about.
“Drowners? It’s always drowners when we’re near water, so it makes sense, right?”
Geralt grunted.
“Or maybe it’s a griffin? They like to show up and mangle people and disappear right back into the middle of nowhere again, don’t they?”
That was somewhat accurate a statement, for a change. The bard was, it seemed, improving.
Unfortunately, his skill in shutting up had stayed unwaveringly static and nigh-nonexistent. As Geralt did his level best to ignore him as he scoured the area for clues, anything that might help him narrow down what creature it was that was causing this town’s unfortunate disappearances, Jaskier kept up a stream of never-ending chatter, as per usual, his monologue mainly nonsense.
A few months ago, Geralt would have told the bard to shut up. Now, though, he realised that giving him any attention whatsoever seemed to spur the man non, positive or negative - and if Geralt’s friendly gut punch hadn’t discouraged him from his quest to follow a witcher, singing, to the edges of the continent, he doubted anything would.
Instead, he focused on the scene before him.
The missing villagers had been taken from the fields, according to the townsfolk, right on the edge of the woods - not that anyone had cared before the local lord, too, went missing - and Geralt had picked up a trail; the faint scent of blood, of one of the victims, no doubt, still hung in the air despite the last disappearance having been three days ago. It was something of a stroke of luck that it did, otherwise they- otherwise, Geralt might have had to simply wait for the creature to show up again and put more people in danger.
There was no them about it.
Still, it did seem - annoyingly enough - that Jaskier’s guess about a griffin may have been fairly accurate. To steal an injured man away so swiftly and easily, letting him bleed out enough to leave such a strong, bloody scent trail, right down to the habitat, it did rather seem like the creature they were tracking may have been a griffin.
Hopefully, the bard forgot his smart remark before he realised he’d been right and started crowing about it.
Regardless of that, however, they’d ventured far enough into the forest that it was a terrible idea to allow Jaskier to continue making such a stupid amount of noise, attracting the attention of possibly every creature in a twelve-mile radius, so Geralt had to, at this point, interact with him.
It wasn’t too big a chore - not like he made it out to be - but the bard was still frustrating, and Geralt, for all the mutations were supposed to dampen his emotions, did end up being frustrated by him. Still, insofar as unpleasant aspects of personality went, Geralt could overlook that kind of thing from the bard - he was only about as annoying as Lambert, for fuck’s sake, and he’d be damned if he ever went around letting Lambert rile him up - but perhaps if he let his irritation bleed into his tone, the bard would realise the utter foolishness of his actions.
That was the rationale, anyways. Geralt could admit to himself, in the privacy of his own mind, that his unfriendly remarks would leave Jaskier completely unperturbed, but if he was so insistent on coming along on Geralt’s contracts, he wouldn’t be handled with any amount of grace or decorum when he decided to fuck things up.
Hells, if Geralt had tried to pull half the bullshit Jaskier did during his training at Kaer Morhen, Vesemir would probably have had an aneurysm.
The bard, in the meantime, was still talking.
“-think that the- the whatever it was, could fly? Because I haven’t seen anything that could be feasibly misinterpreted as a trail you’re trying to follow-”
“Shut up, Jaskier.”
Jaskier blinked. “Is that because we’re getting close?”
“It’s because it’s idiotic to keep up a running commentary on a monster hunt. Makes you a target.”
“Eh. You can deal with anything that might hear me, I’d imagine. I’m hardly endangering the highly experienced monster-hunter.”
The bard looked as confident, as lazily unworried as ever, the picture of brashness and poise in his ridiculously impractical silks, and Geralt could only snort in disbelief.
“And you?”
“Oh! Well, that’s- I doubt I’d be too interesting to any unfortunate-looking little beastie that happens across us,” Jaskier grinned. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Apparently, unless he was hiding some kind of dark and sordid past as a highly-trained armed professional - and Geralt highly doubted it - the bard was also stupid.
“Monsters don’t care whether you’re interesting.”
“Sounds like a them-problem, then.”
Dear gods, the bard was going to be the death of... well, probably not Geralt, but definitely himself.
They continued making their way forward, Geralt never once faltering in tracking the lingering coppery tang of blood that made a trail hopefully right up to the griffin’s nest. He could, faintly, make out a scent underneath it, unmistakably that of a griffin, in the area, and, just like that, Jaskier was confirmed to have become ten times the liability he originally was.
It figured, that Geralt would find himself stuck with the one human on the continent that didn’t have an ounce of self-preservation.
Damn it.
“Geralt? What’s going on, why have we stopped?”
“Just. Stay out of the clearing. If anything happens, scream.”
Understanding dawned on Jaskier almost immediately, his eyes lighting up. “Oh, have we found the monster, then?”
“I have,” Geralt grunted. “Griffin. Likes to play with its food, so don’t let it get you.”
Jaskier winced, but held up his hand in a solemn gesture that Geralt didn’t recognise - probably some kind of oath. “I solemnly swear not to end up as griffin fodder.”
“If it spots you...”
“I will scream very, very loudly, I promise,” Jaskier said.
If the forests hadn’t been so full of various threat’s to Jaskier’s safety, Geralt would have sent him back outright, but this was a good enough compromise on the interim, and Geralt edged into the clearing once he’d made sure that Jaskier had hidden himself away, outside of the griffin’s potential range, and turned his attention to the griffin’s nest, at the precipice of a rather large rock outcropping that marked the edge of a sheer cliff-face, jutting out of the forest.
An awkward formation, and one that was perfect for a griffin’s nest.
Corpses littered the area, as if the griffin had simply gotten bored of its victims and tossed them aside - likely because that what had happened. The griffin itself was nowhere to be found, but Geralt had no doubt that it would show up soon enough. It was just a waiting game, at this point.
The sun was high in the air, so the griffin was most likely hunting - hopefully for wildlife, and not more townsfolk, though given that it had taken the area’s lord’s demise for anyone to actually give enough of a shit to put out a contract, Geralt doubted it would cause much of an uproar if the beast did take another victim, as sour as the thought was.
He could make out which of the victims, exactly, was the lord. Wearing mangled finery, with jewellery adorning his every appendage - fuck, even a small, golden crown that had gotten caught on his sword, which had been jammed into a crevice in the rocks as the lordling had likely dropped it. All the majesty and self-aggrandising displays of wealth that Geralt had come to expect from the backwater lordlings of the countryside, whose people toiled in near-poverty.
Typical.
A shriek alerted him to the incoming creature, as the griffin returned to its nest, and Geralt drew silver almost before he’d ascertained its direction.
The griffin carried a deer in its claws, approaching from the north - it was a small comfort, then, that the village lay to the east - and it dropped its prey as soon as it spotted the witcher, encroaching so dangerously on its nest.
It dived for him, and Geralt caught the wing as it did so, and the beast slid off of its trajectory, tumbling and crashing gracelessly to the ground. It was small - an adolescent - and Geralt didn’t pause as he took not of this, closing the distance between them before the griffin could recover, and sinking his blade into the creature’s neck, and casting the sign of Quen, shielding himself as the griffin began to thrash and claw at him.
He barely took note of the bard, slipping out of the trees - far nearer to where the the crash had taken them than Geralt was entirely comfortable with - as he waited for death to take the beast so that he could behead it, and return for the payment he’d been promised for the griffin’s head.
The fight had been easy - far easier than what Geralt would have expected from a griffin, but the one he’d just killed was young, slow and relatively weak. It had showed in its initial attack, where Geralt had been able to clip its wing, all but ending the fight before it had started, but he wasn’t complaining.
Except.
The griffin had been weak, and it was dying.
But of course it had just enough strength left to catch Jaskier in its death throes.
Stupid, stupid Jaskier.
The horrific, squelching sound of claws rending flesh and bone, tearing through Jaskier easily as the griffin died, was too loud against the sudden silence, and Jaskier barely had time to look down at his mangled chest in disbelief as he fell, quietly and unceremoniously, backwards.
Geralt just... stared, a bit.
That was impossible. Not now.
The griffin was dead, the fight over in a matter of minutes. Mere seconds later, and Jaskier would have been fine
Why the fuck had he come over? What had possessed the bard to jog up to Geralt whilst he was still working on gutting the bastard?
Scratch that, why had Jaskier come on the contract with him in the first place? Why hadn’t Geralt put his foot down and told him to stay in the damn town, where the chances of him dying were exponentially lower? He’d attached himself to Geralt’s side, yes, but Geralt had some responsibility here - the bard couldn’t be older than his early twenties, and the youth were not generally known for their good decision-making skills.
Fuck.
And now the bard was... gone. Just another body to be properly buried to make sure it doesn’t attract another monster.
Geralt shook his head, just once, at the thought that his journeys would be so quiet, again. Nobody would start meaningfully singing Toss a Coin in an unfriendly tavern, nobody would sneak around his back thinking themselves so subtle and trying to braid Roach’s hair...
Jaskier was dead, and Geralt didn’t know how to feel about it, not really.
His chest had been rent open by the griffin’s claws, blood seeping into the blue of his doublet, through his ruined chemise, his blue eyes empty and staring at nothing.
And then, he gasped a breath, and Geralt could hear it, pick out the very moment that Jaskier’s heart kick-started itself back up again, as the bard sat up in a movement so sudden that Geralt’s hand almost twitched to his sword.
But Jaskier simply drew a breath. And another. And another. The broken ribs melded themselves back together into their former shape, torn flesh twisting over them, knitting itself back together until, within seconds, the only evidence that Jaskier had been injured in the first place were the bloodied, tattered remains of his clothing.
And stunned yellow eyes met blue.
“Jaskier,” Geralt said, and if it was a tad hoarder than his usual gruff baritone, Jaskier gave no indication that he noticed. “You’re alive.”
“Your powers of observation, my friend, once again remain unparalleled.”
“You died.”
“I did.”
Jaskier, for his part, seemed completely unperturbed - as was his default, apparently.
“How?” Geralt asked, his tone making the question sound a like more of a demand than a query, but Jaskier simply shrugged.
“Ah. Well. You see, I may or may not have made a few questionable decisions in my youth... Just the usual sort of thing. Ran away from home at eighteen, and immediately tripped headlong into the affair of some friendly neighbourhood fae - you know how it is.”
Geralt raised an eyebrow, because no, he did not know how it was - most people never encountered the fae at all, and yet here Jaskier was, claiming that... Claiming something, at the very least.
For his part, however, Jaskier simply seemed glad to have an audience to tell his tale to. “So, there I was, eighteen and unbearably stupid, and I got myself caught up in the fae’s mess, and you know how unbearably powerful they are, no mage could ever compare... anyways. They decided I’d done them a favour worth rewarding, and decided to offer me a wish.”
“You wished for immortality.”
“I wished for fuck all,” Jaskier laughed, half-bitter, half-amused. “I was bleeding out when they asked. A wish, they said, to a dying man - a dying boy. I wasn’t thinking straight, I just said that I didn’t want to die, and they decided to be dicks about it.”
“Went with quite the literal interpretation, it seems.”
“They did not! I said that I didn’t want to die, and they decided to be assholes about it, because I’ve died so many times, and I just keep coming back!”
“Hmm.”
“Oh, don’t you choose now to relapse into monosyllabic noises of assent. I’ve just told you my whole backstory!”
“Your whole backstory, bard? Seems quite short, for a man such as yourself.”
“Well. The interesting part, at least,” Jaskier amended, shooting Geralt a glare with no real anger behind it. “I’ve not told anyone else, you should feel honoured.”
“Hm. So, you’re immortal?”
“Looks like it! I don’t really think fae wishes have an expiry date. It’s been how long, and i still haven’t managed to make anything stick? Not on purpose, mind, people just really seem to have it out for me, sometimes-”
“I wonder why.”
“-Hey! I’ll have you know that I am a delight to be around,” Jaskier scowled, poking a finger into Geralt’s chest. “Ugh, this doublet, on the other hand, is distressingly mortal. As opposed to myself and my blessed eternal youth.”
“You call it a blessing?”
“Blessing when it’s convenient, curse when it isn’t, isn’t that how these things work?”
“Hm.”
“Anyways,” Jaskier said, idly picking the lordling’s abandoned crown - magpie that he was, of course he’d be drawn to such a shiny, hollow status symbol, “there’s a griffin to collect the bounty on, and a shirt you need to lend me.”
“You are not wearing my clothes.”
Jaskier scoffed, tossing the crown into the air and catching it neatly. “I’m probably older than you, Geralt, you have to do as I say.”
“Your intellect's both mortal and gone already if you think I’m letting you near my stuff. Wear your own clothes.”
Smirking at Geralt, Jaskier laughed - and Geralt knew the bard would be pilfering from him, permission or not, now that he’d gotten the idea in his head.
“Anyways, what are you going to do if I do it anyways? Stab me?”
Geralt groaned.