Yenna

A Witch

The witch who eventually appears is impossibly beautiful, just like people say. It's why you should never trust women who look like that. Only, they're saying Yennefer's the same kind of thing, so maybe that isn't true for her.

The stranger's face lights up with recognition. "Yennefer! Oh, Yennefer. You're so..." Twisted. Crooked. Wrong. She knows. "You're so small."

And the witch clutches at her suddenly. It's disconcerting and Yennefer wishes she'd stop touching her but it doesn't seem likely saying that will change anything, so she just says, "You knew me?"

The woman mercifully pulls back at the question and nods. One hand stays on Yennefer's left shoulder. "I'm Triss Merigold. We're friends."

If she recognized Yennefer, then...but that didn't prove they were real friends, did it? Jaskier said she'd scared the others, and, and if they were just her friends because she could hurt them, then if they learned she couldn't anymore, that she didn't even know how to do magic...

She looks at Geralt. He'd been fussing with the horse, doing whatever it is people have to do to keep horses from dying under them, but he's stopped that now to watch Triss and he, he's not happy about her being there, Geralt was the one who told the woman to come here but maybe Yennefer's got it all wrong and witchers and mages don't like each other at all.

It's a small relief. She doesn't know what a witch does to you but if Geralt doesn't like Triss then maybe he won't let Triss do it just to deny her something she wants.

Yennefer takes a breath and forces herself to say, "If we were really friends, then, d-do you know the reason I'm, did I tell you who my real father was, w-why I'm, why my spine's twisted."

"Oh, Yennefer," the woman says again. "Is that what you thought? Children are just born like that sometimes, it didn't happen because you've got elven blood." And before Yennefer can think anything of that, the woman continues, "Everybody knows," and the air freezes in Yennefer's lungs.

"The Brotherhood of Sorcerers knows, she means," Geralt says.

Jaskier squawks, "Wait, that's it? That's what you were hedging around, Geralt? Why didn't you just say so? I thought it was, you know, something like that she was half lamia or siren or something!"

Triss seems thrown by that, glancing at Jaskier for a moment like he's the one who's some strange and impossible thing, then shakes her head and looks back to Yennefer again. "You see, what happened was you were supposed to go to court at Aedirn once you ascended. But right before the ceremony they decided to send you to an assignment somewhere else instead. One of the other sorcerers, he wanted his niece there, so at the last minute he suggested that they could use Aedirn's mage to make inroads on Cintra, as if, and everyone knows Cintra's just awful, so of course they should pick someone with the right pedigree..." she says with a cheer that turns Yennefer's stomach. "So you know." Triss waves the hand not still on Yennefer's crooked shoulder like Yennefer's supposed to know what that means. "Politics."

"Oh fuck me," Jaskier says.

"They told you they had to change the assignments because you were a quarter elf and you were furious! You pretended you were really sad, so sad you couldn't even go to the ceremony, and while none of them suspected anything, you snuck down for the enchantment and showed up at the party and you charmed the king you wanted into picking you instead," Triss finishes breathlessly.

"I what."

"You were amazing!" Triss insists. "No one was ever that brave, you're supposed to just go where the Brotherhood tells you to go but you decided what you wanted and you got it for yourself! And nobody was supposed to talk about it at all but everybody did. You're the reason I stood up to them about going to Temeria."