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It was cold as a draft blew in through the almost-closed window of the inn.
Geralt lay in bed under clean sheets, though they were stained from tens or hundreds of other travellers. Beside him came the warmth of a human being, which he thought to be much more pleasant. Typically, he would have left in the earliest part of the morning, without speaking a word to the woman in bed with him, or paying her if her services were of a strictly professional nature. Instead, he sat up, and stared down at the sleeping figure beside him.
"Jaskier," Geralt attempted to wake him, "get up."
"Oh, fair maiden, I have never met one so heavenly as yours --"
"Jaskier."
Jaskier opened his eyes quickly enough that Geralt got the impression he had already been awake for some time.
"Oh, Geralt. It's only you," the bard complained with his typical melodrama and feigned disappointance. "Couldn't you allow me to finish my dream first?"
Geralt grabbed his boots off of the creaking floorboards and began to get dressed.
"You do what you will. I'm getting breakfast downstairs."
This offended the troubadour greatly, and he shot up like a startled animal. He stared up at Geralt with sad, cornflower blue eyes.
"Then I'm going with you," he insisted.
Geralt said nothing as Jaskier gathered his things. He said more of nothing when Jaskier grabbed his lute, plucked a few chords, and strapped it over his shoulder.
Geralt still said nothing as they ate breakfast -- hot onion soup and a red-colored dwarven ale. Jaskier, however, had a lot to say as usual, something about destiny and journeys and battles that came to pass.
"I think," Jaskier continued, repeating himself when he realized Geralt hadn't been paying attention, "that if destiny tied you to Yennefer, and if destiny brought you the child surprise, then it must've had something to do with our meeting as well."
"Misfortune could befall upon anyone," Geralt countered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Destiny doesn't exist."
"Ah! But, it might," Jaskier took a large spoonful of pork and onions. Geralt could tell he burnt his mouth on the hot soup by the speed he reached for his pint glass afterwards, "and that's what gives life meaning. The ways that our stories fall into place, that our lives intertwine… That we might learn to love one another because -- no… In spite of destiny saying we shouldn't." Did he mean "we" as the two of them, or in general, as people? Geralt couldn't tell.
"Think of it this way… Do you believe there was any greater importance in our travels? Geralt?"
"No, I don't," the witcher answered truthfully, "and neither is there for anyone else."
"But then, isn't it all the more impressive that we could be companions, in spite of our differences? That we lack any rhyme or reason to how we ended up here, but we persevere anyways?"
"Hmm."
It routinely confounded him that Jaskier, a poet who saw beauty in everything, would still choose to stay by his side, rather than surround himself with royalty or flower gardens or the waterfalls on the southern side of the mountains. He deduced that to an artist, inspiration must come from some aspect of the journey and the thrill of adventure. But he never asked him why, and so he never received an answer.
There was a spring and a lightness in Jaskier's step as he followed after Geralt out the doors of the inn. He was so full of humor and joy in everything he did, even during the most difficult times. Geralt felt that he was the opposite, having been trained from a young age to know only of monsters and violence. Even a stranger could see the difference in the way the two adventurers carried themselves.
"Shall I play us a song for the road ahead? I've procured a new one, one you haven't heard yet, but I've finally figured out the last verse."
Geralt tried to think of a cynical response, but he found himself at a loss for words. Instead, he settled with "let's hear it, Jaskier."
Geralt wondered if it would end the same as with the women he loved, in that they would fight before going separate ways. He was glad that never happened, and that Jaskier always returned, or they found each other again by chance on their own individual travels. In that way, it was less like one ever left, and felt more in the way of coming home.
If witchers were truly incapable of love, he thought, then this was close enough.