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It starts when Geralt goes out of his way to save a man from death by kikimora. The forest is more swamp than solid land, and the kikimora is about to put one of its many legs through the heart of the man half-drowning in the water.
Geralt hefts his sword and after a very muddy and bloody fight succeeds in putting his blade through its skull, black blood dripping out of the hole in its head. After wiping his sword on his tunic and sheathing it, he turns to look at whoever had been stupid enough to get lost in the swamp and run into a kikimora, of all things.
The man in question flounders a bit, pushing off one of the legs of the monster that he’d gotten trapped under when it fell, dead. He takes the hand offered to him and struggles to his feet, leaning most of his weight on the Witcher, who ends up practically grabbing him by the collar as if he were a stray cat. Geralt startles when he gets a good look at the man’s face—slightly shimmery, with eyes with a faint sheen of blue.
“You’re a siren,” Geralt huffs in surprise, dropping the man into the mud.
“Hey!” The siren grumbles as he flings the mud off of his sparkling clothes, reflecting the light like fish scales. “That was very rude.”
Geralt takes his sword out of its sheath.
“Oh dear,” the siren says, not sounding very concerned at all. “Well, this has been lovely, but I’ve got to go. Pressing matters to attend to, you know.”
He manages to disappear with a flourish of his lute and a bow just as Geralt’s sword passes through where his form had been just a second earlier, melting into the darkness of the swampy forest.
Geralt forgets about the siren until two weeks later, when he enters a tavern and finds him sitting there among the patrons as if it was perfectly normal. In the dim light of the place he can pass as human, only a little off—movements just slightly too smooth and his smile just this side of too sharp.
The only thing that stops him from beheading the creature is the fact that nobody else in the drinking hole seems alarmed by him, with the lute at his side and his fancy doublet—sirens did impersonate humans, occasionally.
He’s finishing a meal, mostly fish, Geralt notes. As soon as he’s consumed the last of it, leaving behind only the bones, he turns around to the crowd. He strums his lute, the music lilting and smooth, just inhuman enough that it confirms Geralt’s suspicions.
And then he starts singing, a haunting melody with little embellishments from the instrument in his hands. The siren must be posing as a bard. He croons out his song, twirling from table to table and luring out money from the drunk and sober alike. Geralt debates putting his sword through its chest until he realizes the siren is only taking money, not lives. The tavern-goers drop coins into his leather satchel and don’t notice the unearthly tint of his skin and his pale, pale hands.
He catches sight of Geralt and looks momentarily surprised, but doesn’t halt his playing, instead letting the song trickle into a few dying notes as it ends. He bows and the temporary spell ends, the folk returning to their drinks or their meals, having previously been enraptured by the performance.
The man saunters up to Geralt, eyes shifting from green to blue in the dappled light coming from the holes in the wood of the tavern's battered roof. “Here to kill me, Witcher?” he asks. He is smiling softly, but his stance is wary.
“You’re a siren,” Geralt says, as if it answers the question.
He gets a snort from the fake bard in response. “That’s not an answer, Witcher.”
Geralt mulls it over and decides on a “Yes.”
“Why? I haven’t hurt anyone, just having a little fun.”
“You could kill the whole tavern with one little song, siren.”
The man huffs. “My name is Jaskier, not siren. And what’s the fun in that? I’d rather make off with their shiny bits and bobs than kill them.” The siren—Jaskier, his name is Jaskier—wrinkles his nose. “Would hate to get these clothes all bloody.”
“Thought your kind drowned sailors.”
Jaskier heard the unvoiced question. “Prefer to be closer to land,” he shrugs. “Always been more attracted to the palaces and the mountains than my brother and sisters,” he finishes.
He turns to Geralt, face mere inches away and teeth just slightly too sharp to be human showing in his mouth as he speaks.
“What do you say we strike a deal? I play for you, help you drum up some coin so you can stop looking like, like that.” Geralt remembers that he is still covered in blood and guts. Jaskier’s mouth wrinkles in distaste, but smooths out as he continues.
“And if you run into me again I’ll help you! As a repayment for saving me from the kikimora.” For a creature that lured in victims with song and then tended to drown them, Jaskier was very excitable.
“If I’d have known you’d be this annoying, I wouldn’t have saved you.”
Jaskier pulls a face. “Deal?”
Geralt grunts in response and flags down a barmaid for a pint of alcohol so he can ignore him.
Jaskier chuckles, smooth and dangerous. “Nice to meet you, Witcher.”
“Hmm. Geralt,” he says, and Jaskier gives him a shark-like grin.
He continues to run into Jaskier as life goes on. More often than not he’ll run into him in a tavern, playing mild enchantments that make the listeners a little more generous with their coin. And he comes up with songs too, for Geralt of Rivia. They become popular enough that sometimes when he stops at an inn they’ll look at his gray hair and pale skin, and whisper his name. Geralt of Rivia, the murmurs say. The Witcher. The White Wolf. The innkeepers are nicer and the barmaids more generous.
Jaskier tends to play from dusk till dawn, when the sunlight doesn’t make his skin have the pale sheen of a siren. Against his better judgement, Geralt finds that he wishes he could see Jaskier glimmer finally in the rising sun—he looks like a creature out of a fantasy book sometimes, human-like but slightly off-putting with the shadow of enchantment following him like a shroud. But his music is beautiful. Even though Geralt is immune to Jaskier’s music he can appreciate its beauty. Even though Witchers are unfeeling.
It is full of longing, echoing with an unnatural quality, a lilting tune that goes to the depths of his soul.
It all comes to a head when one night Geralt gets his ass kicked by a Doppler, of all things. It’s taken his form, like looking in a mirror. It’s blows sting, and Geralt is getting nowhere fighting a copy of himself. The Doppler manages to get him down on the ground, ripping Geralt’s sword from his sheath and nearly plunges it into his chest, when a familiar voice reaches them.
The Doppler stops, swaying uncertainly. Jaskier emerges from between the trees, unearthly in the pale moonlight. Sirens are stronger in the presence of the moon, Geralt remembers. Most of them were dispatched with ear plugs and a good sword, not very powerful at all. But some were a bit hardier, drawing power from the pearl-in-the-sky, their name for the moon.
Jaskier glows faintly, skin like mother of pearl, voice coming out discordant and piercing. Watching him, Geralt understands why they call sirens a sailor's worst nightmare—he is entrancing, and yet twisted at the same time—a cruel parody of a bard.
Siren-song, used to tempt sailors to jump off ships into stormy waters.
Geralt finds it beautiful still, to his surprise. He wonders if Jaskier will kill him or the doppler.
His unvoiced question is answered. As Jaskier sings the Doppler drops the sword, lurching over to where the siren is, stopping in front of Jaskier. It’s form ripples, shedding Geralt’s appearance for its original. The siren takes a dagger from his bag and slits the doppler’s throat in one fluid motion, sidestepping the body after the creature chokes and falls to the ground.
He smiles, teeth glinting. “Would have ripped his throat out with my teeth, but I figured even a Witcher wouldn’t like to see that.”
Geralt’s grunts out a thanks. Jaskier watched him rise from the ground, and the Witcher thinks he sees a glimpse of something that could be worry. Jaskier is different from the monsters he fights daily, a little less dark and more prone mischief than violence. He’s almost sweet, bringing Geralt little deformed pearls and bits of fish. Tonight reminds him that Jaskier is dangerous.
“I guess my debt has been repaid,” Jaskier continues. “See you around, Geralt.”
He fades away, melting back into the copse of trees before Geralt can get a word in. Hmm.
Geralt had thought that was the end of the matter, but he still sees Jaskier from time to time, emerging from the forest to sing him a little tune and walk with him for a couple miles before disappearing again, or making eye contact in tavern after tavern where the siren will saunter up to him and play particularly lewd songs.
But sometimes they will sit by a campfire with no sound but a faint strumming of Jaskier’s lute, and Geralt will hand him a shiny bit or bob that he’d know the siren would appreciate. Jaskier always good over the shiny stones, eyes glimmering a little more as he inspects little pieces of shattered quartz or polished agate that Geralt either finds or trades for.
It’s highly illogical for him to do so, but he does it anyway. Having a siren acquaintance (Jaskier insists on calling them friends but Geralt ignores him) could become an advantage. Jaskier has helped him on more than one occasion take down bigger beasts, killing them into a stupor. They have a deadly dance, Geralt swinging his sword while Jaskier follows with his lute, swaying to an invisible beat only he can hear.
Geralt knows Jaskier is dangerous, capable of luring even the strongest of men and women to their deaths with a simple lullaby. And yet he finds himself looking forward to the next time he runs into the siren.
Yennefer tries to kill Jaskier the second she meets him, only stopped from disemboweling him when Geralt sticks his arm in front of him, as he hides behind his lute. Yen raises an eyebrow and gestures haphazardly to the two of them.
“What the fuck is this?”
Jaskier grumbles from behind his lute. “You and your friends are all very rude,” he mutters.
“This is Jaskier,” Geralt says, ignoring him.
“He’s a siren.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t see a problem here.”
Geralt grunts. Jaskier sticks his tongue out at Yennefer, who makes a twisting motion that causes him to double over as if she’d sucker punched him. He probably deserves it.
Yennefer doesn’t really warm up to him until he enchants the man who’d attempted to slip something into her drink into falling asleep face first into his meal.
She looks pretty impressed, actually.
But overall, Yennefer and Jaskier hate each other, it seems. But sometimes they act as if they are exasperated siblings rather than sworn enemies, so Geralt doesn’t really know what to make of the situation.
“Siren.”
“Witch.”
“Fish-eyed scavenger.”
“Prickly curse-caster.”
This continues for several minutes, both of them consuming copious amounts of alcohol until they are both leaning on each other, increasingly creative insults coming out slurred.
It ends when Yennefer manages a response that even Jaskier, the word-smith and famous bard, has nothing to say to.
They laugh drunkenly and slump over the table, as if the exchange of insults had been their way of having a conversation.
Geralt doesn’t understand them one bit.
Yennefer also takes to giving Jaskier things that shine and glimmer, old coins of no worth that still gleam when the dirt is rubbed away, little pieces of sea-glass that have been smoothed by the ocean. In return Jaskier enchants for her, trapping and singing and generally being a nuisance towards anyone she deems annoying.
Which is Geralt, sometimes, and he thanks the stars everyday that he’s immune to siren-song.
Geralt finds Jaskier in a prison once—by coincidence they’d both pissed off the same noble. Geralt through his general behavior and Jaskier by his very existence. By luck they’d been placed in the same cell, hands and feet bound by rope.
Being a siren is dangerous, and Geralt is honestly surprised Jaskier hasn’t been caught and burnt to death earlier. He’s not exactly subtle, wandering in and out of shadows and barely hiding the traces of magic in his voice.
“The royal pansy didn’t appreciate a siren in his court,” the bard huffs. “I was blending in so well too, until the stupid bastard noticed my eyes.”
He continues chattering for what feels like hours, wearing away at Geralt’s already lacking patience.
“Would you just shut up,” he ends up growling. “I already have to listen to your prattle everytime I see you. Fucking siren.”
The cell goes silent, and Geralt feels a tinge of regret at being so abrupt.
A guard comes by, eyeing them for a minute. Geralt supposes they make an awkward pair, a siren and a Witcher. The guard grins rather unkindly, before grabbing Jaskier by the collar and lifting him up until he scrambles to his feet, before pushing him forward by the hilt of his sword. Asshole.
Jaskier looks a little afraid, actually, shooting Geralt a panicked look.
“Where are you taking him,” Geralt grinds out, trying to look as menacing as possible.
The guard looks surprised. “His execution’s been ordered for today,” he states, ignoring Jaskier’s sudden thrashing with a sharp grin. “Oh, don’t worry. Yours will follow shortly.”
Immediately Jaskier begins singing, and Geralt thanks the stars that they had been dumb enough to not gag the fucking siren, holy hell these people were idiots.
The guard sways, suddenly looking very tired yet bewitched. Geralt wonders what he sees, what he hears, when he looks at Jaskier. A lost love, the promise of riches, his deepest desires, perhaps.
The guard untied the ropes and Jaskier immediately throws him into the wall, snarling, before turning to Geralt and undoing his bonds. He’s almost feral, teeth looking even sharper than usual. Geralt rolls his wrists once they are freed, relishing the freedom of movement. Jaskier seems a little less happy to be free, and the Witcher wonders why.
It isn’t until Geralt and him go their separate ways that he thinks through the full extent of what he’d said.
Things come to a head when Geralt runs into Jaskier in a town in broad daylight, not long after their prison escape.
“Jaskier,” he says, surprised to see the siren out in the daylight, not long after his capture.
“Geralt,” he replies, not as warmly as usually but friendly enough.
Geralt hands him a pearl, perfectly round and smooth, that he’d gotten as part of a payment for taking down a striga.
“I. Apologize. For what i said earlier,” he manages in a rush. He hates talking about his feelings.
Jaskier doesn’t seem to mind, eyes flicking from the pearl to Geralt’s face. “It’s beautiful,” he murmurs. He smiles his real smile at Geralt, and they consider the matter closed.
The next time Jaskier ends up out in the open, however, he’s not so lucky. They force him to the pyre before Geralt can get to him in time, the flames starting to approach his feet. He keeps once, guttural and unnatural, skin gleaming like fish scales, before passing out. The townspeople watch, wide-eyed. He bets many of them have never seen a siren before, let alone this far from the sea.
Geralt growls, wolf-deep and low in his throat, rushing through the crowd and brandishing his sword at anyone who doesn’t move out of the way fast enough. The sword and his murderous countenance allow him to get through the throng of people fast, fast enough to take his sword through the ropes holding Jaskier down and take the unconscious siren into his arms and run like hell.
He sets up a campfire and bandages the few burns that appeared, startled by just how much he cared. Witches aren’t supposed to care, yet Geralt can feel his heart twisting as Jaskier mutters something in a language he doesn’t know, half-lucid.
The siren wakes with a start after a few hours, most of which Geralt has spent staring at the moon with Roach. Roach seems to like Jaskier, attempting to eat his hair until Geralt gently pushes her away. He thinks it means the horse has no sense of danger.
Jaskier groans as he pulls himself up, startling when he lays eyes on Geralt, who watches him from the other side of the campfire. He observes his bandages hands and feet and turns towards the Witcher, wincing slightly.
“You saved me?”
Geralt nods.
“You did this?” He waves a bandaged hand around.
Geralt nods again.
“You brought us out here?”
Geralt grunts this time, to throw in a little variety.
“Nice to know you’re as mono-syllabic as ever.” Jaskier sounds petulant, but Geralt can read the relief in his shoulders.
He looks at Geralt with notable softness after that, lingering closer in taverns and trailing fingers up and down Geralt’s arm when they travel to get his attention.
Geralt wonders when his life became like this, when he became, dare he say it, friends with both a Witch and a Siren.
Of course, Jaskier would not be outdone, and saved him from a band of werewolves a fortnight later, winking at him before fading into the reflection of the moon in a nearby puddle.
Yennefer enchants him to be quiet, once, and that ends badly for everyone involved.
He claws at his throat, looking desperate, before Yen releases the spell. Jaskier manages to get out an explanation of how Siren’s voices are connected to their lives, and Yen looks a little guilty. She buys him and Geralt a pint each and doesn’t insult Jaskier for the rest of the evening, which is practically saint-like for her.
Jaskier must realize this as well, because he refrains from cursing as well.
The bit about Jaskier’s voice comes in handy when Geralt accidentally curses him with silence via Djinn.
The Djinn enchants him to be silent, his throat painful, and Jaskier goes even parler than normal, flesh tinged with black and looking more like the sirens of sailors’ legend, dismal creatures wrong and muted.
Jaskier has always looked like the ones from the children’s stories—dangerous, but of an enchanting appearance, beautiful creatures that would lure you to death with pleasure.
One elf, a trip to Yennefer, and an angry Djinn later, Geralt places his hands onto Jaskier’s shoulders and then presses him close for a second, taking in the normal faint glow of his skin and the way he no longer looks like a monster.
They’re both monsters—maybe that’s why they get along so well. Neither of them is afraid of the darkest parts of the other. Geralt has seen Jaskier kill a man with just his ragged nails. Jaskier has seen him covered in blood and guts more times than he can count.
Jaskier melts into the brief touch for a half-second, looking a little overwhelmed.
Jaskier meets Ciri. Geralt is alarmes when he first sees the bard strumming, because Ciri is not immune to siren-song.
“I’m not going to hurt her,” Jaskier says almost petulantly, in response to Geralt’s half-snarl.
He strums a melody for her, singing with his not-quite-human voice but with none of the power of enchantment Geralt knows Jaskier is capable of.
Ciri looks delighted, nodding along to the silvery melody.
They finally put a name to whatever is going on between them in a tavern, of all places.
“I wonder what you would see if you were affected by my enchantments,” Jaskier muses, tilting his glass back and forth so it catches the dim light.
Geralt ponders over that for a second.
“I don’t think I’d see or hear anything different, if I wasn’t immune to your enchantments. I already see exactly what I want.”
Jaskier chokes on his ale.
“Exactly what you want?”
Geralt is suddenly very interested in the wall.
Jaskier grins like a loon.
“Exactly what you want,” he repeats under his breath, leaning back in his chair and smiling.
“Oh Geralt, my love. I didn’t think we’d ever get this far.”
Geralt doesn’t throw him into a wall because he is also rather astounded that they managed to get this far.
They kiss in the stable next to Roach, and it’s somehow the best moment of their lives.
Stories spread far and wide, about a Witcher with hair moon-white, a sword of dragon-strength, and a will of iron. But, the barmaids whisper, some say he travels with a siren far from the sea, who glimmers in the light of the moon. A man cloaked in shadows, who enchants anyone who does his Witcher harm. Some laugh off the legend, but most listen to the story intently, follow the songs of Witchers and siren-bards.
The red sky at dawn is giving a warning, you fool
Better stay out of sight
I'm weak my love, and I am wanting
If this is the path I must trudge
I welcome my sentence
Give to you my penance
Garrotter, jury and judge…
The melody of the valleys, the song of the Witcher and his bard.