Yenna

A Witcher

There is something, Yennefer decides, about knowing there are no good choices left to you. There have probably never been any good choices but at least here she knows there's nothing else she could do so she doesn't have to worry she picked wrong. What happens next isn't her fault, or at least isn't more her fault than usual.

Keeping the horse means the witcher is sure to chase her because he'll want the horse back. But if she leaves the horse, chasing her will be that much easier, so he's sure to chase her, and she'll still have stolen from him so he's sure to chase her, so she might as well keep the horse.

Everything narrows down to this: she can make herself trouble. She dropped almost everything the horse had, so he doesn't need to chase her, not actually. It probably won't help, taking nothing but the clothes she wore didn't let her get away from Jaskier, but it means he doesn't need to. Now either she stays ahead long enough he stops wanting to bother with her or she doesn't and at least she made things difficult.

It's not the witcher who finds her as night comes to an end, though.

She yelps, scuttles backward - as if that works, as if that ever worked, as if there's anything she can do to protect herself.

"I uh," Jaskier says. He's angry again. "Right, sorry. Uh. We need to talk."

"Please let me go," she begs.

"We really need to talk."

"Please just let me go."

"Yenna - nefer," he says, stumbling on her name. That's bad. But he's still using a name. "You, er, you remember I said I knew someone else called Yennefer? A sorceress Yennefer?"

"Yes," she says. She does not have an opinion on that. She has spent the days working very hard at not having an opinion on that, on not thinking at all about the things it can mean when a man wants a woman dead.

It didn't do any good. Nothing she did was any good. Nothing saved her from ending up here.

"Well, uh, that. Is, um. Well. I said some things I probably, I definitely should not have. Which I am very sorry about saying. Incredibly sorry."

She's going to die.

"I just think before we continue I should make it clear I said those things without thinking, and it's really not how I actually feel, okay?"

She doesn't say anything. Pretending to agree with him won't do her any good by this point.

"I mean, yes, alright, kind of, but I didn't mean anything by it, you understand? It was venting. Nothing I said was ever going to change Geralt's mind, or just, matter, generally, so I didn't really think about it. I don't really think about anything I'm saying most of the time..." He trails off, then sighs. "That sorceress. She's, uh, her name's Yennefer of Vengerberg."

It can always get worse.

"You think I'm her," Yennefer says numbly. "The woman you want to kill."

"No! I mean, yes, about you being her, but I don't want to kill you, obviously I don't want to kill you, I've been doing my best to keep you alive -"

"Because you didn't think I was her. Now you do."

"I don't kill people," Jaskier claims. "I shouldn't have said all that stuff and I didn't really mean it and it was really wrong of me, and also I don't kill anybody."

She shudders. "He's the one who does."

"I told you, he isn't like that."

Maybe it's better if it's the witcher. Witchers know how to kill things. He could make it quick. "That's what you wanted, for him to do it. Now he will."