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Even at a young age, Nimue verch Wledyr ap Gwyn had been obsessed with the legends of Geralt, Yennefer and Cirilla.
In Vyrva’s village square, seven-year-old Nimue and the other children gather about the travelling storyteller Stribog as he spins tales of the trio.
The stories are exciting, the characters larger-than-life.
Dinnertime comes and goes. The others return to their homes. Nimue chases the storyteller down, desperate to hear more.
“Tell me about Geralt and Yennefer,” she begs Stribog.
Stribog speaks and speaks, until – he stops. He does not know the ending.
“No one knows what happened to them,” he protests, when she shouts at the beggar and kicks his shins.
At thirteen, Nimue sits on the riverbank, skipping stones idly.
Her dearest friends were being wed to brutish young men, one by one. She knew she was next.
There had to be more to life than being married away and wasting away forever in this stagnant town.
The sorceress Yennefer was everything she wanted to be. Despite her miserable childhood and rigorous training at Aretuza, Yennefer of Vengerberg came out on top as one of the most powerful witches of her time. Beautiful, dangerous, and fascinating, she captured the heart of the legendary witcher, Geralt of Rivia.
She is Nimue’s heroine.
This paltry existence isn’t for her, Nimue decides. She will follow in the sorceress’s footsteps. Quietly packing her meager belongings, she departs for Aretuza in the night.
Aretuza is far north of her river town, worlds away for a young girl alone and on foot. It’s a treacherous journey ahead and Nimue is ill-prepared, but she knows Yennefer wouldn’t have balked.
Several times, she escapes death by the skin of her teeth.
Once, as she flees from a massive, chittering insect-like creature, certain this is where she meets her end, a white-haired witcher swoops in to save her. He wears a hood pulled low over his face and vanishes before she can thank him.
Her heart pounds. She fancies the mysterious man to be the Geralt to her Yennefer. It’s not ideal to meet so early, when she is neither beautiful nor powerful. But perhaps she’ll see him once again, when she becomes a sorceress.
Finally, Nimue reaches the island and Aretuza.
Training is hard.
Her head aches and her hands tremble with exertion. She witnesses some of the other prospective witches suffer terrible accidents. Sometimes, the only thing that keeps her going is the thought that her heroine walked these very halls, sat in this study, chanted the same spells.
It’s all worth it, in the end. The transformation makes her breathtaking. (They wouldn’t allow her to stay awake, even after pleading and begging the rectors. She hopes Yennefer wouldn’t mind.)
Nimue is powerful, now. Is she twenty-five? Thirty? Time has stopped for her, so she no longer counts the years.
She has influence, resources to fulfill her burning curiosity. She needs to know what really happened to Yennefer, Geralt, and Ciri.
Nimue enlists the assistance of Condwiramurs Tilly, fellow alumnus and oneiromancer, to help her with her search.
The two of them pore over books, travel the continent to speak to bards and storytellers, visit countless halls to see painted depictions for themselves.
“Why don’t we ever look at the bard Dandelion’s accounts?” Condwiramurs wonders aloud.
Nimue scowls at her assistant. “Dandelion may have been popular, but he was a scoundrel. A fool of a bard who embellished all his stories and stirred up trouble wherever he went.”
Condwiramurs blinks. “Stories have to be embellished to capture the ears and hearts of the listeners. But it seems like Dandelion was truly a good friend to the three of them.”
“Another victim to his charm, I see. Suit yourself, but outside your free time, I better not see you researching his… works.” Nimue sniffs haughtily, as if she can hardly bear to think about the bard’s songs, his memoirs, his extensive legacy.
So, as they travel, Condwiramurs takes it upon herself to look into the famed bard as well.
Correspondence from Dandelion to Geralt, excerpt:
My dearest Geralt,
You seem to dislike my flowery prose, so I’ll say it simply. I miss you dearly…
Nimue snorts. “Is the bard trying to seduce him the way he did so many misfortunate girls? Did he actually think Geralt would fall for that nonsense? Ridiculous.”
Condwiramurs startles a little, turns to see Nimue leaning over her shoulder. She sighs and keeps reading.
She pauses, rereads a section of the letter. “Hmm,” she muses.
Interview with an elderly innkeeper and his daughter:
“Aye, the witcher has stayed here. Shared a room with the bard, asked for the biggest bathtub we owned.”
“Terrible mess to clean up after,” the daughter adds. “I don’t believe we ever got the stains out.”
“I’ll bet Jaskier filled the bath with petals,” Nimue scoffs.
“Weren’t you going to the market?”
Nimue ignores her assistant, turns to the innkeeper’s daughter. “So, what else? What did Geralt do while he was in town?”
Personal journal of Ciri:
The bard Dandelion came to visit Geralt. He seemed to be at once upset and embarrassed when he saw Yennefer in the kitchen, though that might be because she was in nothing but a lacy, black slip. I've asked, but she won't let me wear such things, even at home.
They argued a bit, but Yennefer cast a muting charm, so I couldn’t catch what they said.
Geralt came back from a contract in the evening. He was happy to see Dandelion.
We retired for the night. I heard Dandelion creeping over to Geralt and Yennefer’s room. I think they had an altercation of sorts, but Yennefer has a permanent charm on her room for “activities a young girl shouldn’t know about just yet”.
They all came down the next morning none too worse for wear, though. Dandelion seemed a little dazed, Geralt was limping slightly from his injury the last night, and Yennefer looked like the cat that got the cream.
“The homebreaker, inserting himself between happy couples as always. Yennefer must have talked his ears off. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why his singing was so atrocious.”
Condwiramurs doesn’t even bother to respond anymore.
A charcoal sketch:
Cirilla, Yennefer, Geralt, and Dandelion sit around a fire.
Yennefer laughs at something the bard said. Her hand is clasped in Geralt's.
Ciri leans on Yennefer slightly as she sharpens a small blade, smiling to herself.
Geralt looks on at the other three affectionately.
Dandelion is leaning back, eyes crinkled with mirth. One hand casually rests on Geralt’s thigh.
Nimue frowns, pauses a beat. She tugs the sketch out of Condwiramurs’ grasp, squints at it. Condwiramurs waits patiently.
Then,
“Oh.”
There we go, Conwiramurs thinks.
Epilogue
Nimue sweeps in the door, gives Conwira a quick peck on the cheek. As she takes off her cloak and scarf, she rants about a student who’d had the audacity to say - to her face - that Dandelion wasn't much, she'd met a bard before that told "way better" stories. Some Jasper fellow? Jaskar? Wait, she remembers now, it was Jaskier. Ridiculous name, really.
“Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten about when you were younger,” Conwira teases. She rubs some warmth into Nimue’s chilled fingers. “You certainly weren’t always the biggest fan of the bard.”
“Well,” Nimue begins loftily, but she gently brushes the hair away from Conwira’s eyes. “You ended up being both the Geralt and Dandelion to my Yennefer, so what could I say after that?”