Mud Monster

A/N: Some more light-heartedness. Akela is about 17.


Summary: Jaskier should have known better than letting Akela convince him to play a prank on Geralt.


Everyone made bad decisions, some more than others, and Akela considered herself one of those people. Unashamedly.

It wasn't necessarily that they were mind-altering, life-endangering mistakes. Just… well. Geralt-infuriating, witcher-angering… bad decisions.

Which was why she usually involved someone else in these bad decisions, so the blame couldn't fall entirely on her.

"You want to what?" Jaskier's face looked like that of a man who'd just been told that all the women of the world were no longer going to open their legs for him.

"You heard me," she told him, glancing around to ensure he hadn't come back from his wash in the river. "I didn't say too much for your small mind to comprehend." He batted at her hand when she made to knock him on the head. "Come on, it'll be fun!"

A dark eyebrow shot up and Jaskier crossed his arms over his chest, spluttering indignantly. "Uh, um, how about no? I fail to see where the fun lies in endangering your life."

"You're such a baby."

"I'd rather be a baby than dead. Dead being you because you're going to die." He poked her chest and spun on his heel to move away, but she grasped his arm and pulled him back, twisting her face into one of pure imploration.

"Please?" she practically begged. "I'll say it was my idea."

"It is your idea!"

"Exactly! He won't even know you had anything to do with it. I just need your help."

Jaskier was a man of manytalents but avoiding Akela's puppy-dog eyes was not one of them. He often wondered how Geralt did it, but he supposed a certain 'emotionless witcher' persona had a hand in that. And, so, it was with a very sudden spawn of butterflies in his chest, and a quick prayer to whoever out there listening, that he sighed and put his hands up in defeat.

An excited grin spread across the girl's lips, and she leaped forward to hug him. "Thank you!"

"Yeah, yeah, just tell me what to do. He'll be back any moment."


Geralt wasn't ignorant to the small pleasantries in life, and one of those was the weather; there was nobody who could say they preferred a wet and rainy ride to nowhere over a sunny trek, warm breeze blowing in your face instead of the harsh icy winds that accompanied the winter months.

Tying his wet hair back, he pulled his boots on and gathered up his old clothes, turning to trudge back up the riverbank. The leaves crunched underfoot, birds singing in the trees above, and the distant sound of Jaskier rattling on about something or other reached his ears. Surprisingly—though perhaps not, if he really thought about it—once he reached where they'd set up camp for the night, he realised the bard was, in fact, talking to Roach. Jaskier talking to a horse. How… terribly like him. Not that Geralt could judge.

"Where's Akela?" he asked.

Jaskier turned around as though he hadn't realised he was back. "Gone to gather wood."

Geralt lifted his head and stared at him, possibly attempting to figure out whether he was serious, and actually couldn't tell that he was in a forest; everywhere he looked, there was wood. "Why has she gone so far out?" he instead decided upon. Much too early to start troubling his mind with, simply, Jaskier.

Jaskier shrugged and turned back around. He pat Roach's neck. "I guess the wood here just isn't good enough."

"It's wood," Geralt told him, uncharacteristically dumbfoundedly. Despite the fact the bard was spewing the same nonsense as he usually did, there was still something nagging in a corner of his mind. Akela knewnot to wander off anywhere without either him or Jaskier knowing where—preferably him. He doubted Jaskier could keep a goldfish alive longer than an hour—and she wasn't one to disobey him regarding something like that. The woods could be dangerous, and he'd drilled that into her long before she'd reached the age where she was able to talk back at him.

Straightening his back, his sharp eyes roved his surroundings, ears perked to listen to the smallest of noises. Jaskier was chatting once again to Roach. There were two—no, three baby birds in a tree nearby. A squirrel was scampering up the trunk behind him. Crickets were chirping a little way off South. The soft breeze was floating through the air from the North. Psithurism, Eskel would tell him.

He didn't think he could hear anything large enough to make a branch creak, though. Of course, it would have helped drastically had he had this premonition before he looked up just in time to receive a bucketful of mud water in his face. In a second, he was absolutely drenched. His white, newly washed hair now held a distinctive brown colour to it, and his face—also newly washed—was caked in the mud which, due to the sun he'd praised not long ago, would dry in moments. Not to mention his newly washed clothes were now very much not clean. He may as well not have gone down to the river that morning at all.

Jaskier snorted. Geralt snapped his head around, amber eyes, the only thing visible against his dark… everything else, boring into him. His fists clenched, and the bard quickly clamped his lips shut before turning back to Roach and restarting his conversation.

"So, I said to the guy: how dare you?"

The endless stream of laughter which came from above him was what made the witcher look up once again. His jaw tensed at the sight of Akela sat among the leaves, a bucket he didn't recognise held, recently emptied, in her hands. She didn't even try to stop herself from laughing. His face was utterly hilarious, despite all his anger being directed straight at her.

Geralt swallowed back a torrent of curses. "Come. Down."

"No, thank you!" Akela called back, shifting into a comfier position on the branch. Yes, she had known some sort of retribution would follow this particular prank—or any prank, really—but she was willing to do all she could to keep her distance from it for as long as was possible. Humanely or not.

He ducked his head and she guessed he was attempting to rein his temper in. "Jaskier," he said, "get her down."

"Me?" Jaskier asked as though he was terribly offended, placing his hand on his heart.

"Yes, you. I know you were in on it, too. Get her down."

The bard sent Akela a look and she shrugged. She hadn't said he wouldn't find out that he'd had something to do with it, only that she wouldn't personally tell him. He shook his head. "Never climbed a tree in my life," he admitted unashamedly.

Geralt growled. "Now's the time to learn." If it were anyone else, undoubtedly they would have done as they were told, nevertheless this was Jaskier, and the only time he did as he was told was when the person doing the telling was a woman. In his bed.

"Why don't you go up yourself?" he asked.

The witcher glared up at Akela, cursing the sly smirk on her lips. The answer, of course, was simple. He knew the girl far better than she'd ever know herself, and he knew that, if he went up after her, the moment he reached even close to the top she would jump down and race off. He needed to be ready, and ready was when his feet were on the ground.

He reached down, eyes not leaving her once, and picked up a fairly large acorn.

Akela's grin died immediately. "Don't you dare."

"Come down."

"No."

He rose a dark eyebrow—even darker than before with the dried mud—and stretched his arm back. "Incoming."

Her arms came up on instinct, shielding her face from the acorn flying full speed towards her, and she screeched. In doing this she dropped the bucket, which Geralt effectively dodged, and lost her grip on the tree. She couldn't decide whether it was good or not that he caught her as she tumbled from the arms of safety, but he soon decided that for her as he hoisted her up and over his shoulder the moment she was secure in his arms and turned to walk back towards the river.

"What part of the river did you collect the mud water from?" he asked. He tightened his hold as she punched his back.

"Not telling, asshole!"

"Jaskier."

Jaskier, who was rushing after them both, obviously to see how this was going to end up, sent Akela a wink. "On the left side of the bank."

"JASKIER!"

"That's what you get, Miss 'He won't even know you had anything to do with it'."

Akela pushed herself up just enough to glance over Geralt's shoulder. He was heading for the river, alright. The left side of it, too. Geralt bounced her, causing her to flail slightly before crashing back down in her previous position, face painted brown from the mud coating his shirt.

A moment later, he stopped, and she immediately wrapped her arms around his waist, her eyes wide and heart thumping. "If I go down, you go down with me," she told him with the utmost sincerity.

Jaskier snorted. Geralt rose an eyebrow. "Suit yourself," he said, and the next thing she knew, he was leaping into the water, Akela still attached to him like a leech. Her scream of surprise caused water—mud water—to fill her lungs the moment she became submerged in it, and for a second every sane thought escaped her as she became surrounded in the murky depth of it. Moments later, she felt the arms around her legs slide to her waist, pulling her up and to the surface. She gasped for breath as soon as she reached it, immediately grabbing onto him.

He was smirking a little wryly when she opened her eyes, water streaming from him, mingling with the dried mud and dripping to the water. He was completely drenched, an obvious sign he probably should have waited until now to bathe instead of wasting his time that morning. In her panic, Akela clenched her jaw and slapped his face, to which he hardly moved and instead leaned quickly forward to blow a raspberry in her neck. She spluttered in the water, pushing him away just in time to see a genuine smile grace his lips.

"Back off, mud monster," she said with a giggle, swimming away.

"Um, actually, you're both mud monsters, now," Jaskier couldn't help but shout from where he was standing—safe and dry—on the riverbank, leaning against a tree.

Geralt turned to look at Akela, and she briefly noticed the glimmer of mischief in his eyes. A smirk crossed her lips and he immediately moved to swim to the bank, her in tow. Jaskier's eyes widened and he extended his arms, palms up, in clear defence. He moved away from the tree.

"Now, you bastards, listen to me! Don't you dare! I am not getting wet! I-I only just washed! Geralt, Geralt, take your damn hands off me! Akela! Fuck you! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!"

A large and resounding 'splash!' scattered birds from their nests.

"AH, SHIT! Geralt—Geralt, oh sweet Lord, there's a frog in MY HAIR!"