Chapter Text
"It took you weeks to lift your stone, Piglet. You can't bend water, your feats of thought transference can't be described as such. And now you lie to me?"
Tissaia de Vries locks her eyes on Yennefer's face, stares at her with an icy scowl. Even though she is not sure if it is sufficient punishment for her. Summer rears its head one last time before it nears its waning. Far below her study, the sea laps lazily against the foundations of Thanedd Island and a warm afternoon wind presses the sultry air through the window. The heavy, stiff clothes don't make it any easier for her to breathe, her collar and corset chafe her sweat-damp skin, her head is aching from the heat and the stuffy air. Perhaps that is why she is gradually losing patience with the obdurate girl who only stares at the ground all the time.
"Politeness demands looking at someone who is talking to you, Piglet." The hatred in Yennefer's gaze burns hotter than the merciless sun outside her window. She tries to stretch her back, and Tissaia doesn't have to bother entering her thoughts to know she's in pain. Her back, the injuries on her arms, her jaw after a long day of standing a lot, talking a lot.
She would be willing to feel sympathy if Yennefer would at least make an effort. If she just had the decency to admit that the work lying on her desk is not hers. But all she gets when she confronts her student with these accusations is the obdurate expression of a sulking girl. Of a child who knows exactly what she has done, but stubbornly continues to deny everything just to be right.
"Tell me the truth, Piglet. Where did you get this essay?"
She waits, but the look in Yennefer's eyes does not diminish. Instead, it only grows sharper, more fiery, more stubborn. So obdurate she can't even manage to gain her admiration. A sorceress needs ambition and perseverance. Many of her own achievements would never have come to fruition if she had given up at the first failure. But what Yennefer is doing is no longer a demonstration of perseverance, but pure defiance, and she does not tolerate these things in Aretuza.
"Where did you get this work?" She repeats, eyes narrowing to slits and pointing accusingly at the sheets of parchment on the desk. The margin where she usually corrects, notes mistakes and points out areas for improvement is blank, except for a tiny note regarding a single punctuation error.
She looks expectantly at Yennefer, but the young adept only shrugs her shoulders, avoiding her gaze to let it wander over the carefully lined up books and pens on her desk. Showing her how little she cares about the allegations.
"There are methods in Aretuza to get you to be a little more open and honest, Piglet," she resumes, her voice lowered to a much sweeter tone this time. "I hate to use them, but such disrespectful behaviour will leave me no other option sooner or later." Any other adept would know full well that she was in serious trouble if she spoke to her like that. Any other would confess, some have fallen on their knees crying before her at such moments and revealed all their secrets to her, whether she wanted to hear them or not. Only Yennefer, the stubborn little thing from the farm near Vengerberg resists her insistence with such vehemence that Tissaia is beginning to feel herself running out of ideas to break that stubbornness yet. "Personally, I am not a believer in corporal punishment, but in the days of my mistress, Rectoress de Winter, it was all too common for adepts to be chastised for significantly lesser offences..."
"Then chastise me, Rectoress," Yennefer forces out between her teeth, her violet eyes fixed on her face with an angry glint. The title sounds like poison from her mouth, bitter scorn, a more than clear sign of her contempt. " I will tell you nothing but the truth."
"And what truth would that be, Piglet?" Tissaia inquires pointedly, stepping back behind the table so that she is standing just in front of her chair, towering over Yennefer, who is slouched and slumped in her seat. Her posture sags whenever she isn't concentrating on it, because all her energy is going into her stroppy rebuttals.
"That I wrote it myself!" Yennefer bellows at her. Tiny droplets of saliva fly across the table, a few ruining the letter to King Virfuril of Aedirn that she had prepared before Yennefer stumbled into her office. Half an hour late for the appointment she had called her in for and with the same obdurate expression on her face she has not shed since.
She will have to rewrite the letter, for in front of Yennefer she does not dare to lower her eyes to wipe the drops of water from the paper.
"And you're sure of that, Piglet?"
A nod.
"And this is your final word?"
"May I go now, Rectoress?"
Yennefer's gaze meets hers. It's not a question, just another attempt to provoke, which she's come to know well enough now in the few months Yennefer has been in Aretuza. She is neither the most stubborn nor the most defiant adept she has ever taught. The culmination of her stubbornness and irreverence is a joke against Margarita Laux-Antille's constant escapades during her last years. Not to mention Philippa Eilhart's wicked habit of insinuating sexual advances into every sentence she spoke to her. How she would love to tell Yennefer with just that, to make her realise that she has dealt with much more difficult cases. However, Yennefer would take it as a triumph that she has thought about giving her this title, and that would be highly adversarial. So she raises her hands to fold them over her waist, resumes her slow walk around the desk, unhurried steps that reveal calm, a face from which not a hint of emotion can be read. No anger, no disappointment, not to mention the question of what on earth is making Yennefer cling so tightly to a lie that has long since been exposed. What she hoped for, and still hopes for, from all this.
"The paper was excellent, Piglet," she informs her with a restrained smile, striving to give her voice the air of admiration. "You will have noticed, I hope, that unlike in the work of your classmates, there was hardly anything to correct." She lets her fingers flick carefully through each page, allowing Yenenfer to see the snow-white borders.
"Yes." Is her only reply to that.
"Regrettably, I found this exact work in one of the books in the library..." She makes sure Yennefer's gaze meets her hand as she places it on the tome's torn brown cover. "Coincidentally, the exact book that was borrowed from Sabrina last night. Can you explain by any chance how your work, word by word, could have found its way into a tome that is over a hundred years old, even though, according to you, you only wrote it last night?"
A piercing look hits Yennefer, making Tissaia hope that the whole thing can finally come to an end. The room is so stuffy and hot that her desk occasionally blurs before her eyes, her dress too tight, her breathing too shallow. But Yennefer's look alone tells her that all hope is in vain.
"You'll have to ask Sabrina, Rectoress. It was her book."
"Oh it's not that you all copied from it, Piglet," she replies with a shrug. She is by no means such a fool as not to know that no adept, however gifted, can write down a technically outstanding essay in a couple of hours without assistance. "And I support finding and working with good sources, that will make things a lot easier for you one day. However, what I don't tolerate..." she adds sharply as she sees Yennefer about to slump back into her slumped posture, "is the unprecedented insolence you've displayed, Piglet. It's one thing to adorn yourself with someone else's plumes by passing off their work as yours and hoping to gain fame and recognition from this theft." In the corner of her eye, she sees Yennefer bend over the page after all, running her eyes down each row of letters. Even though she is too far down the page, far too far down, to realise what exactly her problem is. The problem that should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense, and which Yennefer so completely ignores for reasons known only to her, stupidity or audacity. "But it is an entirely different thing to have the unprecedented impertinence to confront me with my own work and think I would not recognise it."
With the last words she turns, looking directly into Yennefer's face, her dangerously twinkling eyes narrowed to slits. Yennefer stares back. This is what she expected. Stubbornness, malice, a brazen grin, possibly even a physical attack. But not the shock that lies in Yennefer's expression. She sits perfectly straight up, eyes widened, mouth half open, but none of the words she was supposed to hurl at her escape her lips.
"What have you got to say about that, Piglet?"
Again she expects impudence, insults, obdurate silence at best. But not Yennefer's soft whisper, as guarded and fearful as the look in her eyes.
"I didn't know."
Her voice trembles, failing to control her as she fails at everything, every kind of magic, every single element, every task she sets for it. Even to cheat she is not skilled enough. She is not an entirely hopeless case like Duralis, but far from deserving her recognition. So why does she feel the urge to step towards her, to reach out a hand and place it on her shoulder? Where does the hushed desire come from to hand her a handkerchief and turn away for a moment, to arrange flowers, to look out of the window to spare her the humiliation of letting her see her blow her nose and wipe the tears from her eyes? She doesn't know. And it doesn't matter, because she is the head of Aretuza and cannot afford such emotionalities with her students. Yennefer, like everyone else, has to learn that Chaos forgives nothing, that magic is cruel, a constant give and take. One is given nothing without a sacrifice, a hardship, and excessive pity in their youth does not help them when they must one day prove themselves in the world. Especially not for a creature as strong-willed as Yennefer, who needs to learn to control herself and her whims.
"You did not know what was written before your eyes, Piglet?" she asks pointedly, gesturing with one hand to the top line, the title of the treatise. "The Legislative Power of the Chapter of the Gift and the Art the first centuries after its founding, written by Archmistress Tissaia de Vries,' she reads aloud, letting her finger roam over each word. Yennefer's gaze follows her fingernail, strangely focused, as if she is trying to internalise each word exactly. Eventually, her eyes linger on the end of the line. On the string that signifies her name.
"Are you still going to claim you didn't know you were copying my paper?"
She nods.
This is not surprising at all, but this time Tissaia can detect no audacity in her features, not a hint of rebellion against her, against her order, her discipline, against everything Aretuza and the Brotherhood is built upon. This time, it seems to her, even though she cannot explain it, Yennefer is actually telling the truth.
"So you didn't even bother to read what you were copying, then?" Her eyes narrow to slits and this time, finally, Yennefer trembles under her gaze. The stubbornness disappears from her eyes, replaced by fear, uncertainty. All the things she would have expected to see in her gaze ever since she entered the room. Because really, she should have known it by then. "Have you gone mute, Piglet?"
"I didn't read it, just copied it," Yennefer explains quietly, not daring to look her in the eye.
"So you didn't even bother to give the work you copy the respect of reading it?" Her voice grows sharper the longer she speaks. "You thought my work was no better or worse than any other written down in this tome or all the others in the library? It was pure coincidence that you presented me with a paper on chapter legislation and not a treatise on the natural poisons of the forktail or the flora of Kaedwen?"
"Sabrina thought it was good," Yennefer murmurs shyly, her gaze lowered.
"And you parrot Sabrina Glevessig, of all people? You don't bother to check whether the source she puts in front of you is any good or not?" She can hardly believe what Yennefer is saying, knowing that the girls distrust each other. Sabrina has never been even remotely nice to Yennefer and as much bad things can be said about the young adept with her downcast lilac eyes, she has never thought her so naïve and gullible. "I thought your experience had taught you not to trust every smile that comes your way..."
"But I can't!" The jars on her shelves shake so violently that Tissaia raises a hand for safety's sake, to steady them after this outburst of emotion, to prevent precious oils and prohibitively expensive potions from spilling onto her carpet. She keeps her eyes fixed on Yennefer though, firm and unwavering.
"What do you mean you can't, Piglet?" she inquires harshly. For a moment nothing happens, Yennefer just chews her lower lip, looks at her out of shy eyes, then breaks down.
"I can't read it," she shouts, letting Tissaia feel the untamed, raw chaos pressing against her magic, trying to make the glasses tremble again, to break the room into its component parts. It feels strange, different from usual, but she will think about that when the opportunity arises. Now all her attention is on Yennefer and her desperate screaming. "I painted off the signs. I wanted to do everything right. I can't... can't... can't..."
"You mean to tell me you can't read and write?" She raises an eyebrow questioningly, eyeing Yennefer with a penetrating gaze. She nods demurely. "That is, when I asked you if you could read and write, you lied to me?" She doesn't need the nod to know she's right. Yennefer's look alone is enough, the fear that lies within, even if she can't make out what of.
"Good," she nods quietly, dropping into her chair in contentment and pulling the corrected sheets towards her. Yennefer's confession explains a lot. The constant stubbornness, the vehemence with which she refused to turn in written work or copy blackboard notes. Her unwillingness to comply with her request to read out a certain passage, which she usually ignored until she asked another pupil to take over. Everything suddenly falls into place before her eyes and, as so often happens, when she sees it she wonders why she hadn't thought of it before.
"May I go now?", Yennefer's voice has dropped to a whisper, her gaze sliding longingly back and forth between her and the door, the exit from her office, the possibility of escaping her and her gaze.
"You have lessons still?"
"Court etiquette."
Tissaia considers for a moment, then nods curtly. "You are dismissed, Piglet. Go to class, you can't afford to miss the lesson with your deficiencies. Afterwards," she adds, as Yennefer is already jumping up, turning towards the door. "I'll expect you back here in my study."
"But..." Yennefer continues, but she silences her with a hard look.
"That will be all, Piglet," she ends the conversation and demonstratively turns to the papers on her desk to show Yennefer that any discussion is both unwanted and pointless. "Don't let me detain you."