#jaskier's wings are that of a tawny owl

[king-finnigan]

wingless thing

this is a oneshot that i was planning on turning into a full series at some point, but i never really had any ideas for the main storyline. so here it is, now; it’s an AU where everyone on the continent is born with wings. the only people who don’t have them are witchers.

Geralt sighs as he looks up at the tavern, built into the side of the mountain. There is no path up, no way to get there other than flying. Which wouldn’t be an issue for anyone else.

But unfortunately, Geralt isn’t anyone else.

He lets out an annoyed huff and Roach bristles softly, pushing at his shoulder with her nose. He pats the side of her neck, tangling his fingers through her brown mane. “Sorry, girl,” he mutters. “Gonna have to sleep outside again tonight.”

He doesn’t really know what he expected. Posada is full of mountains, of course people are going to build as high up as they can to get away from the creatures and monsters on the ground. Still, he’d been looking forward to a proper meal and a soft bed for the night, but it looks like he’ll have to make do with his bedroll and some dried meat. He always does.

He takes the saddle and reigns off of Roach and starts setting up camp – laying down his bedroll, gathering wood for a fire, checking his dwindling supplies. He counts his coin, finds out he’s still low on it and gold hasn’t magically appeared in his pouch since he looked this morning.

It’s the reason why he came here in the first place. Usually, he doesn’t venture this close to the mountains – the buildings always high up and only accessible from the air – but there haven’t been a lot of monsters in the plains and forests lately, so he had no other choice but to head east.

He looks up as he hears wings flapping, watches with a barely-hidden scowl when a young man descends from the air, softly lowering himself on one of the branches of a tree at the edge of the clearing. His feathers are a light shade of brown, almost golden in the late afternoon light, interspersed by darker ones painting long stripes across his wings. The young man cocks his head, keen, blue eyes taking in the sight of Geralt sitting on the ground, wingless.

“What are you doing down here?”

Geralt rolls his eyes, his already thin patience running out quickly. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Setting up camp.” Apparently this young man either doesn’t know what a rhetorical question is, or he’s unable to pick up on them. “But why down here?”

Geralt glares at him, narrowing his eyes at those golden-brown wings. The young man merely raises his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. Geralt sighs. “I can’t get up there.”

“Up where? The inn?” Geralt nods, and the stranger finally seems to get it, his eyes flicking to where Geralt’s wings should be, his mouth falling open in a soft ‘O’. He appears to figure out a lot of things in the next few seconds, his face going from confusion to realization back to confusion numerous times.

Geralt sighs, lighting the fire with a quick Igni, the blissful quiet stretching out between them.

“You’re the Witcher,” the young man says eventually. “Geralt of Rivia, the Butcher of Blaviken.” Geralt resists the urge to growl at the mention of that cursed town, his mind unhelpfully providing him with the memories of Renfri, of her blood coating his hands, of Stregobor cutting off her grey-and-white wings while the entire town chased Geralt away. He shakes his head to rid himself of the images.

Finally, the young man comes down from the tree, the tips of his wings dragging in the dirt behind him as he walks towards Geralt, extending his hand. Geralt doesn’t take it and looks away. Eventually, the young man gives up and sits down on the other side of the fire, big, blue eyes taking Geralt in, his brown feathers trembling slightly in excitement.

“I’m Jaskier, by the way.” Geralt doesn’t respond, but the young man continues regardless. “You know, I’m a bard. My lute is still up at the inn-“ he jabs his thumb up at the side of the mountain “-so you’ll just have to take my word for it, but it seems to me that you’ve got a bit of an image problem, Witcher. You know, I could be your barker-“

“No.”

“-spreading the tales of- of… Geralt of Rivia, the…” He seems to think for a few seconds, chin in his hand. “The White Wolf!” he finally exclaims, spreading his wings and arms dramatically, nearly knocking into Roach, who bristles angrily, taking a few steps away from the annoying and expressive bard.

Geralt looks at Jaskier for a few moments. “The White Wolf?” he eventually asks, voice flat.

Jaskier nods excitedly. “Yes! Because your hair is white and you don’t have any wings! I saw you pacing around here before I arrived, and I thought to myself ‘wow, this guy looks just like a wolf stalking its prey’, so there you have it! White Wolf! Do you like it?”

“No. Go away.” What the fuck does he need a barker for? He’s perfectly fine on his own. He’s managed seventy years alone on the path without wings, and he’ll manage a thousand more, thank you very much. Now all he needs is for this guy to fuck off and let him be so he can get some much-needed sleep. He’ll set out early again tomorrow.

Jaskier pouts a bit but gets up, luckily. “Alright, aright. I’ll leave you to it, then. Bye, Geralt.”

“Hmm. Bye.” He doesn’t look up from the fire, sees the flames dance in front of him as Jaskier flaps his wings and starts running, eventually taking off, up and up into the sky, towards the inn built into the mountainside. Once the sound of wings flapping has faded away, Geralt lets himself relax and eats a meagre meal of dried meat and a crust of stale bread. He falls into a restless sleep after that, his dreams plagued by black and white wings, speckled with blood.

---

He sets out early the next day, towards Dol Blathanna. A goat farmer had approached him in the morning, offering a hundred coins for a demon that kept stealing his goats. Geralt highly doubts that it’s a demon, but a job’s a job, and no matter how little money a hundred coins is, it’s better than nothing.

He saddles Roach and heads to the east. Before long though, he hears the sound of wings, someone flying towards him.

“Geralt! Hi!” Jaskier lands next to him, using his momentum to fall into step next to Geralt, Roach too slow and the branches too low to keep flying. He’s a bit out of breath, but his entire face is lit up with a smile that easily rivals the morning sun. There’s a lute hanging against his hip, Geralt notices.

“So, what are we hunting?”

Geralt scoffs. “We aren’t hunting anything. Fuck off.”

Jaskier pouts. “You know, you should really work on your people skills. I bet you’d get more contracts, then, though of course my songs will help. I mean, I’m almost getting the impression that you want me to leave!”

Geralt throws him an apprehensive look. “I do want you to leave. Go away.”

Jaskier huffs, his feathers puffing up slightly in annoyance. “No! No, you need my help, Geralt of Rivia. Unless, of course, you want to be forever known as the Butcher of Blaviken and a wingless monster.”

Geralt scoffs. “I am.”

“What? The Butcher of Blaviken or a wingless monster?”

“Both.”

Jaskier gasps, hand dramatically laying over his chest, wings stretching out, the tips bending forward a bit in shock. “You are most certainly not!”

“Well, I’m not a white wolf, either.”

Jaskier laughs softly, his wings folding behind his back again. “I assure you that you are. Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you agree?”

Geralt rolls his eyes, but feels something soft unfurl in his chest. “Hmm.”

The bard grins. “So you do agree! Of course you do. I’m right, after all.”

It continues on like that for a while, Jaskier chatting on and on, his wings almost equally as expressive as his hands, and he almost slaps an increasingly disgruntled Roach with them several times. Meanwhile, Geralt keeps quiet, only giving monosyllabic answers from time to time, keeping an eye out for this so-called ‘demon’. Eventually, he dismounts Roach, leaving her behind at one of the only trees visible in the plain of yellowed grass, the rich mountains no more than a silhouette behind his back. He continues on foot, Jaskier following closely behind, still chattering.

“Sorry, what are we looking for again?”

“Blessed silence.”

“… Yeah, don’t really go in for that.”

Something rustles in the grass, and Geralt barely has time to turn around before something hits Jaskier square between the eyes. The bard collapses onto the ground, and the witcher walks towards him, finds a small, metal ball on the ground. He looks up when he hears footsteps, registers the dark silhouette of a person against the bright sunlight, and is promptly struck against the back of the head, his vision fading to black rather abruptly and violently.

---

He wakes up in a cave, hands bound by his side, something soft and firm and trembling pressed to his back. He frowns, confused, until he moves his head a bit and feels feathers tickling against his cheeks, the wings behind him puffed up in fear – except they aren’t his wings. Of course they’re not; he lost his a long time ago.

“Ah, good, you’re awake,” Jaskier says behind him.

Geralt grunts, starts struggling against the ropes that bind his wrists by his side.

“This is the part where we escape!” Jaskier exclaims, wings fluttering a bit in excitement, as if this is all just some big adventure.

“This is the part where they kill us,” he growls, still struggling against the bonds.

“Who’s they?” Jaskier’s wings contract in pain against Geralt’s back when a she-elf kicks the bard in the stomach.

Everything is a bit of a blur after that, getting his and the bard’s life threatened by the elves – easily identified as elves by their iridescent dragonfly wings – Jaskier’s lute getting destroyed, the elven king talking about the atrocities committed against them, and eventually letting the bard and the witcher go, even giving Jaskier a new, elven lute, the wood as shimmery and iridescent as their wings.

And before long, they’re headed back to Posada. Jaskier walks in front of him, strumming his new lute, singing a song of which only three words are true, give or take, his wings puffed up to let the soft breeze ruffle through the feathers.

Back in Posada, Jaskier offers Geralt to carry him up to the inn, which he resolutely refuses. There is a certain shame in having to stay on the ground while everyone else flies past, his differences pointedly underlined by his obvious lack of wings, but there’s something else entirely revolting about having to be carried up by a scrawny, little bard.

But instead of going back up to the inn alone, Jaskier stays on the ground with Geralt, practically stealing the Witcher’s spare bedroll.

“So,” Jaskier says, gently plucking away at the strings of his new lute. “What’s the deal with-“ he gestures at Geralt “-you know.”

He rolls his eyes. He’d much rather go to sleep right now than listen to the bard make redundant statements and ask vague questions. “No, I don’t know.”

Jaskier seems to hesitate, biting his bottom lip gently. “The wings,” he eventually half-whispers, as if it’s something Geralt’s sensitive about. Which he is, but he’d never show anyone that. “Where are they?”

“None of your business.” The light of the flames burns his eyes as he stares into the fire, and for a moment, he could swear he sees black and white feathers between the logs. For a moment, he’s still a boy at Kaer Morhen, looking on helplessly as they burn part of him, the barely-healed wounds in his back a constant, agonizing reminder of what he’s lost.

“Hmm,” Jaskier hums, plucking a few notes on his lute. “I suppose not. But there are rumours, you know? Like that you have to eat your own wings to become a Witcher.”

“That’s disgusting.”

Jaskier scrunches his nose. “Yeah, figured that one wasn’t real. Also heard a rumour that it’s what gives you your magic-“

“We don’t have magic.”

“-but my nan’s friend’s uncle’s brother’s teacher lost one wing during the war, and he didn’t get any magic powers, so I suppose that one’s a lie as well. I also heard a rumour-“

“Go to sleep, bard.”

Jaskier pouts at him for a second but Geralt doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he lies down on his bedroll, turning his back to the bard.

After a few seconds, he hears the faint rustling of clothes, the quiet thud of the elven lute being placed into the old, worn case, the clicking of locks being closed. He waits, watching the light of the fire dance across the trees around them, as Jaskier’s breathing grows slower and deeper.

Only when he’s sure that the bard’s asleep, does he let himself relax slightly, wincing when he shifts- the motion pulling at scars he can never truly forget. No matter how many nights have passed since that day so many decades ago, the ache in his back never fades.

He slips into a restless sleep.