"PUT your grumpy face away Geralt. You do not look nice", teases the bard smiling and gives his so called friend a side eye.

"That's my normal face expression", Geralt rolls his eye. But while the bard Jaskier answers him, his gaze rambles across the great hall of the redanien palace. As soon as he saw a beautiful woman he isn't even listening anymore.

Crimson is all over her body. The gold jewelry is shimmering in the candle light while she is dancing joyful. She is beautiful.

"Hey! Why aren't you listening to me?", Jaskier steps closer to Geralt and takes a look in the same direction. Suddenly a big smile appears on his lips as he realized, that the way the witcher looks at this girl means something. Something more than just the normal ignorant look Geralt gives everyone.

"Oh I see, you've found the...", the bard gets interrupted by an old friend greeting Geralt.

"God, why do you look like a sad silk trader?", the man says and points to the blue velvet fabric that surrounds the witchers body while he burst out in laugher.

Geralt aggressively turns his head to the bard, who decided to steal the typical witcher armor und replace it with a velvet suit, that fits the big witcher snug. Before Geralt could change, he already found himself in the redanian castle.

Fright is overcoming Jaskier and his smile disappears. He quickly grabs his instrument to run off.

Of course the girl caught the witcher staring and immediately stopped dancing. For a moment she just stood there glaring at the white haired man, who is now turned away from her to speak with some man.

Curious about this man, who is build like a wardrobe, she confidently walks closer to him. As soon as the other man leaves the white haired guy, she steps forward.

"I've never seen you in the castle", she says with a smirk.

"Well", Geralt turns around and he went silent for a moment, when his gaze met her.

While the girl has to restrain a laughter, he cleared his throat and continued:"The king ordered me to do a job. Seemed important".

"And will probably give the witcher a good coin", the girl slightly laughs as she completes his sentence,"What's this job about? Maybe I can help you".

"Such a small little girl can't help me", he shakes his head with a smile on his lips, pointing out her height,"Except she can show me, who the princess must be".

"What kind of fool are you, witcher?", she busts out in laughter,"You aren't even able to recognize a princess even though she's right in front of you".

Geralts smile disappears slowly. If he wasn't a witcher, his cheeks would probably turn red out of embarrassment. He examines the girl, searching for indicators, that she really is the princess.

"I guess you mom really didn't teach you any manners", she rolls her eyes turning away from the witcher, while hiding a smile. Messing with this witcher, who's just here because of her, brings her joy.

"Oh excuse my misunderstanding, princess", he bows while careful giving her a tap on her shoulder, so that she will turn her attention back on him.

After turning back, the first thing that catches her gaze are the golden eyes of him. For a brief moment they both just stood there, admiring each other until Geralt turns away, suddenly facing the king.

"Majesty", greets the witcher while bowing for the king.

"Good to see you've already met my daughter Amalia", the king smiles,"You two are going to spend a lot of time together, so you better get along". With his last words he faces his daughter, so she'll know that they are about her.

"What do you mean, father?". The Words just fly of her lips like that. She doesn't understand what a witcher has to do with her. Especially because she will not spend plenty of time with the grumpy man willingly.

"He is going to escort you to Aedrin, so that you'll get to know Stennis, your future husband", with a frowning face he continues while glaring at his daughter seriously,"You already knew that, so put a smile on. You are the princess".

Amalia restrains to roll her eyes and does like her father asked her to. Smile like nothing is wrong even though she has to marry somebody just for politics.

"Why did you order a witcher? I thought you didn't like them", she slowly answers und then quickly turns to Geralt with an excusing smile. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, she's just curious.

"Did you already forgot that you escaped my knights twice when they wanted to escort you?". In Geralts face you can visibly see his shock. He didn't expect a princess to be such a rebel.

"Tomorrow morning you two are going to start heading to Aedrin. You can spend this one night in the castle, witcher", with that said the king leaves.

"Fuck no", the princess swears, taking the witchers wine glass out of his hands and dinking it in one sip.

As she realizes what she just did, she briefly looks up to Geralts face. He is already staring at her.

"Just get a new one", she rolls her eye,"I needed it more than you'll ever have to". Without hesitation she turns around quickly heading to her room leaving the witcher alone.

"Wow", Geralt says with amazement while ordering a new drink.

"The look on your face tells me, that you've met the princess", Jaskier smiles giving Geralt a pat on his back,"She's beautiful, isn't she?".

"Hm", the witcher growls and continues,"Remember she's not your league at all. She's the princess". He knows that the bard likes Amalia and that he is known for destroying girls reputations.

"Yeah I know", the bard quickly says,"Where even is she? I wanted to talk to her".

Geralt knows that Jaskier is going to follow her, if he'll tell him the truth so he just answers:"None of your business". With that said he leaves to get some sleep for tomorrow.

•••

It's the next morning. The birds are chirping. Usually Amalia loves early mornings, especially because she can see the sunrise, but today is an exception. Just the thought about traveling with this witcher gives her pain. The witcher isn't even the problem, not being able to run away it is.

While packing the last things, someone knocks on her door:"We are ready to go princess!".

Geralt had already mounted Roach when Amalia arrived. First she greets her horse, then she turns to Roach and his owner.

"Good morning beautiful", she smiled then looking up to the witcher,"Morning witcher". Her actions made Geralt slightly smile.

He watched her mounting the black friesian horse. As soon as she waved goodbye to her father, Amalia flicks her tongue and with that her horse started moving.

•••

Both already rode quite a long time in silence until the princess wasn't able to stay quiet for longer.

She usually speaks a lot but she wanted to wait and see if the witcher would say something, but he didn't. He remained silent like a rock and that's what annoyed Amalia. She's the princess. Usually everyone wants to talk to her. But he was different and that's what made her curious.

"Did the 'small little girl' form yesterday scare the big grumpy witcher away, or what's your problem?", she asks while letting out a laugh.

His gaze quickly turned to the direction of her voice and his eyebrows were furrowed while he was glaring at her. Amalia was shocked. Is he really always that serious on his witcher trips or what? But then the whitehaired man smirked and turned away.

"Oh wow that's going to be a lot of fun", frowns Amalia while rolling her eyes. He really was a rock. God even his muscles looked hard like a rock and she really wanted to touch them. Of course just to prove if they are not just made out of fat and his armor makes him so muscular. Then eventually Amalia realized she was staring. All of this time until now she tried not to. But she failed.

"Like what you see, princess?", Geralt mocks while smiling devilish. She immediately turns away while crimson spread on her cheeks.

They are going to have a lot of fun.