Geraskier soulmate au with soul marks? 👀
OooOo, okay so right off the bat I’ll say that I don’t tend to go for soulmate AUs, so this is new territory for me!
I’m gonna establish this right away - soulmarks fucking hurt. Like, getting-a-tattoo hurt. Some people are better at dealing with it than others, but its generally accepted that if you need to take a day off to suffer through it then that’s fine. Some people have teeny tiny soul marks, some people have HUGE ones that take days to complete.
Jaskier’s soulmark is, predictably, enormous. It comes in when he’s 17 years old, back when he’s still a Viscount. It starts on his upper shoulder and being the cocky lil shit he is he initially thinks oh, this is fine. Spoiler alert: it is not fine. It takes two days for the burning to stop, and he finally leaves his room broken and exhausted. He refuses to show anyone - especially not his parents, who’re desperate to see it. Three days later, he’s vanished - no note, no anything - all that’s missing are a few items of clothing and his lute.
Geralt doesn’t have a soulmark. Witchers don’t have soulmarks, he’s told again and again. The mutations, the trials, the strain. And in any case - it’d be futile - Witchers live longer than humans but are also more likely to die in the field than humans. Geralt’s soulmark comes in anyway, on the same day he’s fighting a cockatrice. He doesn’t even register the pain of it under the slash of the cockatrice’s talons, and when he’s healed whatever it might have been is now just a mess of white-ish scar tissue.
So - everything occurs as usual. Geralt is alone, and becomes the Butcher of Blaviken. Jaskier bounces from place to place, seemingly at random, journeying alone (apart from his lute), as if looking for something. Their paths finally cross in Posada, and Jaskier throws himself at the witcher, attaches himself to him - even after their encounter with the elves that leaves him bruised and broken.
They travel together, on and off. Its nearly a year since Jaskier sat himself at Geralt’s table in that tavern when the pair find themselves ambushed by rotfiends and are both caught in the sticky, explosive mess. Geralt has to virtually push Jaskier into the river, dunking him beneath the water and pulling off his shirt so he can be free of the rotfiend acid. Jaskier wriggles and protests but Geralt isn’t having any of it, and soon his shirt is discarded and Geralt sees - for the first time - the marks and lines crawling across Jaskier’s shoulders, down his back, snaking across one shoulder. It’s a soulmark, says Jaskier, and Geralt responds - Yes, I can see that. What is it? And Jaskier looks unsure, for once, and mumbles and stutters then finally - a map, he says, breaking Geralt’s gaze, a map that led me to you.
