DANSE MACABRE [Jaskier]

[04] Business As Usual

also known as;

'A Bard Steps In'

I

COMPOSED, controlled, powerful, unwavering. Tissaia de Vries was many things that deemed her perhaps the most important asset to the Brotherhood of Sorcerers. She had plucked kingdoms from the very ashes they had crumbled to. She had advised lazy kings and warrior queens. She had procured the interests of the Continent's leading monarchs and denied them all the pursuit of her meticulously protected heart.

Her dragon-hide heels clicked with each marching step, announcing the arrival of a sorceress in the midst of a dozen ignorant, wirey-haired men. From the perpetual look of displeasure to the no-nonsense demeanour, she was born to teach. To discipline. To command respect of whatever room she graced her presence with. And so a role such as her own, could not have been bestowed to anyone more suitable.

Tissaia de Vries was a revered rectoress. A spear-head, an example to young girls everywhere whom possessed enough power to disrupt the ripples in the magicka filtering all around them. She was their guide, their role-model and, in some aspects to those girls less fortunate, a mothering figure to be raised firmly but fairly.

And now she stood, in her own opinion, in perhaps the most unnecessary circumstance atop a stone amphitheatre surrounded by rows of tiered seats, many of which were occupied by grumbling old wizards, watching beadily and smoking from long pipes. The chamber was vast and muffled, allowing whispers to carry through the depths of the shadows. Naught but flaming torches mounted on brackets and the strip of afternoon sunlight, streaming in to the centre of the stone platform from high above, could purge through the ominous darkness.

"How very unusual that you would call me to a hearing, Stregebor," said Tissaia, pale hands clasped professionally at her front. The staring of a dozen eyes upon her standing there could be easily brushed aside, "I suppose all the dramatics are necessary for whatever you wish to discuss."

Her words echoed around the chamber, reaching the ears of every silent wizard. Bar one, who leaned forward in his seat and caused it to creak quietly.

"We've heard news, Tissaia. Two sorceresses have abandoned their courts in the last two years. One would not be so troublesome, but two may be a cause for concern," Stregebor appeared unsettled as he explained, draped in robes of onyx and boring an expression of deep unrest.

Tissaia withheld her breath, lips slightly parted. Somewhere at the back of her mind, a sneaking suspicion began to make itself known. When she did not speak, Stregebor went on.

"Yennefer of Vengerberg and Narys of Redania are currently...'missing in action'. Neither can be accounted for and I fear they may pose a problem."

"Fear not, Stregebor. They are not useless little girls who cannot tell a donkey's arse from it's head. They are sorceresses that I chose to ascend. They will do well to act under the code of the Brotherhood," Tissaia replied, her expression unreadable yet her tone rather careless. After all, these were her girls. They were resourceful, unyielding - she had taught them well. She had bandaged their wounds, educated them on the schools of diplomacy and self-control. To say she was proud of them was one thing, but neither needed to know that directly.

Stregebor raised his eyebrows, his fingers templed in front of his wizened features, "You are to do nothing to prevent an issue?"

"I propose that we let them live and let live until there is a cause for action. They are women, are they not? They have the capacity to take care of themselves and do right by the Brotherhood. In the mean time, I will monitor the situation and if it does change - then I will seek them out myself and return them to the sanctuary of Aretuza. Are they currently together? The two were awfully close, I remember that there never was one without the other."