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Geralt’s daemon is a nightingale named Feliks. He’s a tiny bird with drab brown feathers who rarely—if ever—shuts up. He’s borderline unbearable, to be honest, and if he weren’t his daemon Geralt might have abandoned him by now. They’re separated, of course, so he’s frequently in the trees above or flying ahead or getting distracted by something in the distance. At the moment he’s on Geralt’s shoulder as they travel, but that likely won’t last long.
Geralt doesn’t understand him, which is . . . frustrating. He should understand his own daemon.
“How far to the next town?” Feliks asks. Geralt resists the urge to sigh. It’s the fourth time he’s asked.
“I have no idea,” he says. Feliks makes an annoyed noise and hops off his shoulder to fly ahead.
“We’ve been riding all day!” he complains. “Geralt, I’m going to waste away from boredom! I’m going to starve to death!”
“You are not,” Geralt says dubiously.
“I might!” Feliks says indignantly, landing on his other shoulder and puffing up his feathers. Daemons are supposed to be your soul, but sometimes Geralt feels like he’s got the wrong one. Most times, really.
Well, that's probably his soulmate's fault, whoever they are. They do say daemons have a part of your soulmate in them.
Feliks, apparently, has a rather large part.
"Can't we go any faster?" Feliks says, hopping impatiently in place.
"There's no reason to wear Roach out," Geralt says.
"Yes there is!" Feliks says. "We're going to be out here until dark at this rate!"
"Feliks, for fuck’s sake, it's still morning," Geralt says in exasperation. Feliks huffs.
"Hardly an excuse for dawdling," he says. "What if someone was expecting us? What if the weather turns bad?"
"Neither of those things are happening," Geralt says.
"But they could!"
Geralt really, really does not understand his daemon.
"Are you even listening to me?" Feliks says. Geralt decides it's time to start ignoring him. "Geralt!"
It's going to be a long ride, Geralt thinks resignedly.
.
.
.
They get to town, eventually, and see Roach stabled and fed. Feliks is a little more patient now that they're in civilization, but not much. The stablehands stare at him in bemusement, like most people do. Witchers have just as varied daemons as humans do, but people still always expect something intimidating and showing up with a songbird has rarely gone over well.
Geralt could say something about it, but he's long since past trying to explain or defend himself. No one ever listens anyway.
He heads into the inn with Feliks swooping in after him, annoyed and tired and hungry, and immediately draws up short and forgets entirely about the rest of it.
His soulmate's daemon is sitting by the bar.
She's a massive white wolf, pale and gorgeous, and Geralt has never seen another living creature like her, daemon or not. She looks like she could eat Feliks in a single snap. Geralt’s sure she could, in fact.
"Hm," she says, cocking her head curiously.
Feliks trills.
"You're gorgeous!" he says delightedly as he lands on Geralt’s shoulder again, fluttering his wings in excitement. The wolf gives him an unimpressed look. Geralt stares down at her, not knowing what to say. Witchers don't typically meet their soulmates. Usually they either get themselves killed or outlive them.
So Geralt was not actively expecting to ever meet his soulmate, much less meet them in some shabby little inn in . . . where even are they? Posada? He thinks it's Posada.
"What's your name?" Feliks asks eagerly. The wolf just eyes him. Geralt can't see anything but her, the rest of the tavern having melted away to nothing. He can hear people talking and someone singing and the sound of a lute, but she's still the only thing he's seeing.
"Jaskier!" she barks. The lute music stops, and so does the singing.
"'Jaskier'?" Feliks repeats curiously. She doesn't look like a "Jaskier", Geralt thinks.
She looks away from them, stomping an impatient paw against the floorboards, and, "Oh," someone says. Geralt glances towards the voice reflexively and finds his soulmate just standing in the middle of the place, definitely overdressed and carrying a lute. He's a man—barely—with short brown hair and blue eyes, and looks about as startled as Geralt feels.
Actually, Geralt doesn't know what he's feeling right now.
"Oh!" the man repeats, blinking stupidly at them. "You're—really?"
Geralt seriously considers turning and leaving right now. It'd probably be the smart thing to do.
It'd definitely be the smart thing to do, actually.
"I don't believe it," the man says, and immediately rushes over and stands much too close, staring intently at them. Feliks leans towards him; Geralt leans back.
"Finish your damn song, bard!" someone calls.
"Shut up, we're busy!" the man snaps back without looking away from Geralt and Feliks.
"Look at you, gods, you're practically a babe," Feliks says, fluttering his wings again. "Are you even old enough to be out by yourselves?"
"We're eighteen," the man says, slightly defensive, which is actually even younger than Geralt had been assuming. Fuck.
"You've got a lute!" Feliks says.
"I'm a bard," the man says. Feliks makes an incredulous noise.
"A bard," he says. "Geralt, he's a bard."
"Is that your name?" the man says, looking at Geralt’s face. "Oh—I know who you are!"
That's unfortunate, Geralt thinks. The man looks delighted, though.
Jaskier, he thinks. He certainly looks more like a “Jaskier” than the wolf does.
“If I’d known, I’d have come and found you,” Jaskier says, which as a concept is something Geralt can't even process. “You leave something of an impression, after all.”
“Well, of course we do!” Feliks says, puffing himself up. Again, Geralt really does not understand him.
“I’m Jaskier,” Jaskier says, which Geralt’s already figured out. “This is Kaja.”
Geralt looks at the wolf. She looks back at him, still looking unimpressed. Geralt really doesn’t know what to think of her.
“Friendly, isn't she,” Feliks says, peering down at Kaja. She bares her teeth at him and he twitters leerily.
"Oh, yes, she's actually horrible that way," Jaskier says. "Makes me look ridiculous, honestly. Gods, you're a gorgeous man."
Geralt frowns. Jaskier gestures feelingly with his hands.
"Really," he says. "Just . . . all this. All of this. This is really quite a lot."
"You're not very much at all," Feliks says. Jaskier gives him an offended look.
"Excuse you!" he says. "I am all sorts of things!"
"Mmm, are you, though?" Feliks says. Jaskier scowls at him.
"Well, you're not exactly a cardinal or a bluejay, are you?" he shoots back, and Feliks makes an indignant noise.
Well, this is about as well as Geralt could've expected meeting his soulmate to go, really.
.
.
.
Jaskier and Kaja follow them to the job, Jaskier and Feliks sniping at each other the whole way. They don't stop even after the elves kidnap them, which is . . . annoying, to put it mildly. And definitely inconvenient.
They all get out of it alive, somehow, but Geralt isn't really in that much better a mood. Things that do not help: Feliks and Jaskier bickering over the song Jaskier’s composing on his new lute.
Kaja seems as annoyed as he is, at least, so that's something.
"Ugh, you're terrible at this," Feliks says.
"You haven't even heard the whole thing yet," Jaskier says crossly.
"Yes, so how bad do you think you're doing?" Feliks retorts snidely.
"You're impossible!" Jaskier says.
Geralt represses a sigh. Feliks and Jaskier keep bickering all the way back to town. It’s increasingly annoying, but Geralt doesn’t really feel like getting in the middle of it. At least Feliks isn’t fussing at him for once, he supposes.
It is really annoying, though.
"Is he always like this?" he asks Kaja resignedly as he's stabling Roach again and Feliks is harrying Jaskier, who's griping accusingly at him.
"Give you two guesses," she says dryly. Geralt sighs, patting Roach one last time before leaving the stable.
Well. At least they're not dead.
"And yours?" Kaja says.
"Give you two guesses," Geralt says. She snorts.
"Jaskier!" she barks. Jaskier jumps. "Stop arguing with the bird and go earn some money."
"Why should I?" Jaskier says sourly. Kaja gives him a dubious look.
"So we can actually afford to sleep in the inn tonight, idiot," she says. "And eat."
". . . alright, that's fair."
Kaja growls impatiently. Jaskier makes a face at her, but heads back into the tavern with obvious purpose. Feliks follows him, for no reason Geralt can make sense of. Kaja looks annoyed, but follows too, and then Geralt just . . . trails after, for the moment. He can't afford a night's stay after giving all his money to the elves, but he supposes he can eat something, at least. He's this close to starving.
Jaskier talks to the bartender, gets a nod, and then heads over to an open spot of floor and starts to play. It is, unfortunately, the new song. Feliks flutters around him and Kaja wrinkles her nose. Geralt sighs again, then sits down at the bar and orders dinner. Feliks has done worse than follow around a bard, and again, he's starving. Kaja sits on the floor beside him, looking annoyed. He emphasizes.
The bartender brings him an overflowing plate and a drink he didn't order, and Geralt frowns.
"I didn’t—" he starts.
"On the house, sir witcher," the bartender says, then sets a plate of sausages on the stool next to Kaja and whisks away. Geralt's so bemused he doesn't even protest.
"Hm," Kaja says speculatively, then tears into the sausages. "Are people always this grateful when you get beaten up by elves?"
"Never," Geralt says, eyeing his plate warily. Hunger wins out, though, and he digs in. Behind them, Jaskier keeps singing, and Feliks, bemusingly, starts to sing along. By the time they're done with the song, so is most of the bar.
Geralt's considering escaping out the back door, but the bartender brings him another drink and Kaja another plate, and, well . . .
Kaja and Jaskier might be separated, he realizes in vague surprise as he glances down at her. He hadn't thought about it before, but she seems comfortable going fairly far from him in a way most daemons wouldn't be.
"Are you separated?" he asks.
"No," she says, swallowing the sausage in her jaws. "I don't really fit the image of a bard's daemon, though. I stay offstage."
"Ah," Geralt says. Well, he understands that. He glances back towards Feliks and Jaskier, and the pair of them seem to be having the time of their lives singing for the crowd. It's strange, considering how much arguing they were up to earlier, but apparently having an appreciative audience has put them in more agreeable moods.
Feliks, actually, looks like a perfectly suitable daemon for a bard.
Maybe that makes sense, with soulmates. Geralt admittedly hasn't paid much attention to soulmates in his life; they've rarely been relevant, and he was never expecting to meet his anyway.
But Kaja . . .
He supposes Kaja looks like a perfectly suitable daemon for a witcher, doesn't she.
.
.
.
Feliks and Jaskier go through a few more songs but eventually finish up with the crowd and come back to the bar with Jaskier’s pockets jingling with coin, both out of breath and excited.
"I knew they'd love it!" Jaskier says triumphantly.
"Of course they did!" Feliks says, fluttering his wings smugly as he lands on Geralt’s shoulder.
"You didn't even like the song," Geralt says, eyeing him dryly.
"It's grown on me," Feliks retorts primly.
"It's an excellent song," Jaskier says.
"Can we afford to stay the night or not?" Kaja asks, looking annoyed.
"Oh—yes, we can," Jaskier says, reaching into his pockets and jingling them briefly. "Lucky us, but the locals apparently appreciate a good tune."
"Good," Kaja says.
"Here's your cut, Feliks," Jaskier says, counting out a share of coins onto the bar. Geralt watches in bemusement.
"Excellent," Feliks says, fluttering over to the money. "Geralt, I want to sleep indoors tonight."
"We can't afford it," Geralt says automatically. Feliks huffs at him.
"Can you count or not?" he asks, pecking once at the little pile of coins. "We're fine."
"I mean . . . we could split a room," Jaskier says. Everyone else gives him odd looks, and he reddens. "We are soulmates, if you'll recall. I'm not expecting stabbed in the back in my sleep."
"Point," Feliks says. "Geralt, let's split a room with them. Then we can get a bigger breakfast in the morning."
"Hn," Geralt says.
"Well, why not?" Jaskier asks, folding his arms.
He has a point, Geralt supposes.
"Fine," he says, pocketing the coins on the bar. Jaskier looks pleased. "Just don't talk all night."
"You know I can't promise that," Feliks says, and Geralt sighs. He gets to his feet, and Feliks flutters up to his shoulder. Jaskier glances him over and bites his lip. Geralt decides to ignore that.
"Well?" he says, and Jaskier goes to bother the innkeeper for a room.
"They're absolutely going to talk all night," Kaja says dubiously, and Geralt grimaces. She's probably right.
Well, it's a little late now.
Jaskier comes back and leads the way upstairs, and sure enough he and Feliks chatter the whole way to the room. At least they're not arguing anymore, Geralt thinks resignedly, so that's some mercy. Less merciful: he thinks they might be starting to like each other.
Jaskier opens the door of a room and holds it for him. Geralt has no idea what to do with that. Feliks swoops through easily and without missing a beat. Kaja follows with a sigh.
Geralt looks at Jaskier for a moment. Jaskier looks back at him. He’s very much not what Geralt would’ve expected from his soulmate, if he’d ever actually expected anything from his soulmate, but . . .
"Well?" Jaskier says, and Geralt sighs too and heads into the room.
It seems like the thing to do.