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Yennefer wasn’t trying to be cruel. Ciri was the first person she showed it to by pure dumb luck. Ciri was done with her chores earlier than the Witchers, and she wanted to avoid being assigned anything new. Someone had to conquer the laborious task of checking if Yennefer had made it back yet, and Ciri gladly offered her services, meandering down the long, cold hallways that rightly separated Yennefer’s labs from the rest of the populace. She found Yen sitting in front of a mirror, just staring at her own reflection.
Yennefer wasn’t trying to be cruel.
She truly didn’t think the mirror worked.
She’d been tracking it down for nearly a year. Sometime before the dragon massacres, it had disappeared from the Toussaint court. Rumors of it appeared all around the continent—Cintra to Redania to Aedirn, where she’d originally heard the tale. Between the war, tutoring Ciri, and being stuffed up at Kaer Morhen with her ex and his infuriating bard, her interest had gone cold. That was, until mention of a magic mirror had stumbled down the grapevine. A mirror that could show you your heart’s deepest desire. Apparently, a merchant tried to break it to sell it in pieces, but the thing formed right back up again.
Yennefer steadied Ciri in front of the mirror, keeping her eyes fixed on where the braid Jaskier gave the girl every morning had shaken loose from its ties.
Yen breathed out slowly. “What do you see?”
Ciri hesitated before answering because she knew Yennefer wouldn’t drag her over to look into some regular mirror, even if it was cleaner, more reflective than any Ciri had ever seen at Cintra. The once-princess gave herself a hard look. Fair and pleasant no longer, her skin sat darkened by her outdoor training. Her arms and legs were thick. Not the dainty limbs of a courtier, Ciri was strong, sturdy, and really quite sweaty. She gave herself a smile, admiring how far away that scared little girl at court had come, but the thing slipped off her face as shadows in the mirror began to move.
They formed up like fog, obscuring Yennefer, and leaving someone behind. Someones .
Yennefer felt the moment the mirror worked its magic, the tension crackling through Ciri like Chaos. The girl reached out one hand, watching herself do the same in the mirror.
“Is that… my mom and dad?” Ciri had memorized their faces from tapestries and portraits. “And my grandmother and Eist?”
“This mirror shows you what your heart desires above all else,” Yennefer explained softly.
It seemed like the girl hardly registered Yennefer’s words until her eyebrows twitched together, eyes tightening. Her face shuddered through several emotions like flicking pages in a book. Her hands balled into fists, and she glanced to the side, breaking the spell enough to convince herself not to look back.
Ciri ran.
Yennefer really wasn’t trying to be cruel.
Jaskier and Geralt came next. As a pair, however annoying it was. They were nearly attached at the hip, and Yennefer couldn’t tell if she would honestly prefer them to be attached by the lips. At least then all the pathetic pining and brooding and melodrama would settle the fuck down, but every time she thought up a clever trick to get them to admit their feelings, she instead drowned the plan in whatever alcohol she was able to conjure. She rationalized it like this: if Geralt was going to be stupid enough to get himself a Child Surprise with powers enough to rend the fabric of reality, he had to pay it off somehow. Shutting them away in Kaer Morhen was bad enough, and then he got to bring the bard? Yennefer wouldn’t suffer it all celibate, and Geralt had dick enough to spare.
Besides, she liked Jaskier. Against her better judgement, she’d warmed up to him after a drunken night in which she’d found out he too was quarter-elf—
But you weren’t born with any… deformities?
Gods, Yen, are you so inclined to believe backwater drivel? An elven grandparent is as much to blame for a clubbed foot as the wisp of cloud on Monday brings the Friday storm. I’m sure you’ll find as many cleft palettes and missing limbs in the perfectly human population as the half bloods.
—that he was staying—
Bet you feel stupid joking about my crow’s feet, huh?
—so really, she wouldn’t try to inflict a romance on him with Geralt of all people, no matter how much he stunk of love. It would only lead to heartbreak. She and Geralt had yet to work out their own relationship, and they had a magical djinn connection prodding them to bang every fifteen minutes. Yennefer had learned how to isolate the urge, reaching deep in her Chaos for the strand that was slightly off. To her irritation, she’d found all of her other urges undisturbed by the djinn’s meddling. That urge that made her run her fingers through Geralt’s hair after the bard had so painstakingly washed it. That urge that coaxed her to stay after the sex was over, after the sun had risen, stay forever . Just like the feelings dug up by the djinn, she was able to bury these too.
Jaskier was fiddling with a loose thread on Geralt’s shirt.
“Stay still,” Yennefer snapped, and he stuck out his tongue but did as commanded.
The moments before the magic kicked in were the worst. Her thoughts ran ahead, unbidden. What if Geralt saw her? What if Geralt saw them together, happy and content as he so fiercely wished they could be? Or worse, what if he didn’t see her at all? Yennefer was selfish, vain. Needy , her mind supplied, and she whipped that voice back into the dark corner from whence it came. Yennefer didn’t need anyone. It was all in the mirror.
“I think you got duped, Yen,” Geralt said, the edge of his mouth quirking up.
Jaskier shrugged and agreed, “Yeah, I don’t see anything different—“
Geralt jumped back as if burned. His eyes, previously trained on the mirror, darted down to where he pressed a hand to his side. Jaskier lifted an eyebrow in concern, but Geralt’s focus was back on the mirror, eyes wide like he was staring down the maw of a kikimore.
His gaze jumped once to Yennefer over his shoulder, then to Jaskier at his side. He fled without a word, like father like daughter.
“What did he see?” Jaskier took a step towards the mirror, peering into it curiously. Yennefer watched understanding dawn over him. Instead of fear or anguish, his lips came together in a sad smile. Taking in a deep breath, he exhaled it in a rush and quirked his head to look at Yennefer.
“It’s supposed to show you your single deepest desire,” she said, though it came out no louder than a whisper. She glanced at the mirror, and its fog cleared like dropping a background in a play. It was mocking her.
“Then I’ll take a wild guess at his.” Jaskier prodded his chin with one extended finger, meandering over to a couple chairs he insisted she add to her workshop. Science required company, he assured her, and Yennefer had thought it more expedient not to argue. “A dry pair of winter socks? What do you think?”
“Kaer Morhen in its former glory,” Yennefer guessed. She dropped into the chair opposite, and he leveled her with a pensive look.
“All his brothers alive and well again…” Jaskier leaned back with a huff, steepling his fingers in his lap. “You don’t think it would be you? The last jagged piece in his life is your rocky relationship.”
“I am not a puzzle piece for him to shave off parts to fit!” Yennefer spat, and Jaskier held up his hands in surrender. Yen snorted, folding her arms as she said, “And why couldn’t I ask you the same thing? If I didn’t already have the evidence of Geralt’s bed being otherwise occupied, I would never have believed you two weren’t together.”
Jaskier was quiet for a long time.
“There’s no victory in gloating, Yennefer,” he said finally, and it welled up like a knot in her throat, sand in her mouth.
“I’m sorry.” And she meant it. Yennefer had taunted Tissaia about her usage of please , but the truth was, no self respecting—self- aggrandizing , more like—Aretuza witch used pleasantries like thank you or please . Apologies were smoke; politeness was political. And yet, and yet. At Jaskier’s voice gone low and flat, so different from its usual neurotic quality, the apology was down right simple.
“I’d like it, if it were true,” he admitted. He turned an unfairly maudlin gaze on Yen. “But I’ve spent decades telling him I love him.”
“He’s quite the idiot,” Yennefer offered, and it made Jaskier laugh.
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
She was, before Geralt decided to be the dramatic one today. She was going to ask both of them and gauge whether Ciri’s had been a fluke. Somehow, the time didn’t feel right. When she shifted to put her leg in her chair, he sighed like an overburdened Roach.
“There was no change, at first.” He let his head fall back, eyes sliding shut. “But when Geralt leapt away, I realized his reflection hadn’t moved. He was still standing there next to me with the dumb little look of concentration on his face. Then you—“
“Me?” The word burst out of her unbidden. Jaskier had seen her in the mirror?
“Yes, you,” Jaskier griped. His face rumpled as his squeezed his eyes tighter, and he moved his arm to drape over his head. “You walked over and kissed him, and Geralt smiled, and you reached over and took my hand.”
“Jaskier.”
His head bobbed up, reddened eyes blinking at the dim room. Yennefer moved carefully and with great purpose, kneeling where his legs jutted out from the chair. He’d slumped so far down in the chair, ass nearly hanging off, and Yennefer put both hands on either knee. She watched his throat bob as she parted them, not quite shuffling forward but swaying into the space left.
“Jaskier,” she repeated, resting her cheek on the hand still covering his left knee. “You saw me in the mirror?”
“Yes,” he breathed. His tongue came out to nervously wet his bottom lip. “Yen, I—Melitele’s tits, witch, get off your knees. I can’t focus like this!”
Now there was her bard.
Yennefer hesitated at the thought. Her bard. Well of course he was her bard. No one pined after her lover and taught her kid how to make latkes and made her conjure flowers just so he could braid them into her hair; no one did all that shit without thoroughly becoming hers . She hadn’t realized the bard might feel the same way, hadn’t realized he was capable of looking past the two hundred some pounds of Witcher bulk that shadowed his every step.
He’d said Yennefer and Geralt.
A soft knock and sniffle had her head turning towards the door. Ciri was there, eyes red-rimmed but bugging like she hadn’t meant to interrupt. Yennefer cleared her throat and rose to her full height, beckoning to Ciri.
“I’m sorry if what you saw in mirror made you uncomfortable,” Yennefer said, gathering the girl in her arms. Ciri pressed close, pushing her face into Yennefer’s shoulder, and when had she gotten so tall?
“‘S not that,” Ciri mumbled. “It’s… what I didn’t see.”
“What do you mean?” Yennefer pulled back enough to see Ciri’s face, but Ciri wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“I saw my parents and my grandparents. People who love me. My family.” Ciri’s hands bunched in the back of Yennefer’s dress. “But I do have a family.”
“Oh, Ciri.” Yennefer crushed her daughter in another hug. Squeezing and rocking for good measure, Yennefer said, “The mirror only shows you what you don’t already have. You have me and Geralt.”
“I do. I know.” The girl took another minute to compose herself, hidden against the rich black silk of Yennefer’s dress. When she broke the hug, she glanced at Yennefer with a watery smile.
“Now, go collect the bath sheets you’ve hidden in everyone’s laundry. I know you’ve been stashing them in other people’s bins instead of washing them like you’re supposed to,” Yennefer said. Ciri’s face immediately melted into a betrayed pout.
“I can’t get away with anything around here!” Her stomps echoed off the stone floor as she whirled on her heel, marching out. Yennefer cocked her head and heard it, there—a tired laugh and a deep sigh. Ciri was going to be fine.
“You’re doing so well at this, my dear. I can’t imagine why you were ever worried.”
Yennefer pursed her lips, remembering those first few months. Drained from Sodden, angry with Geralt, and there was this child prowling the halls like a ghoul. Her first attempts at building a relationship were sloppy, rude, and left more than one person in tears.
“You’re not escaping this conversation,” Yen said, rounding on him again. He looked slightly more put together, but there was still that haunted glaze to his eyes.
“I don’t know what there is to say, Yennefer.”
She nearly growled at him, a nasty habit picked up from living with gods damned Witchers, and she stalked over to his chair. Yennefer hauled him up by the doublet. He protested, citing wrinkles and expenses, rarities and craftsmanship, until she let him go. They were once again in front of the mirror. She had her back to it, putting herself between it and the bard.
“I just see myself,” she said quietly.
He blinked.
“I thought it was broken at first. A regular mirror. Then, I noticed something different,” she admitted. “I was smiling. The rest of the mirror totally unchanged, but I was smiling, and then I was laughing. Gods, I wanted it to be broken.”
Her fingers twisted in his doublet, but he gave no complaints this time.
“I’m so self-absorbed that my deepest desire is to change myself. To make me other than I am. I thought I was done with all that.” Her head bowed, pressing against his chest. She felt his arms wrap around her, and for the first time in years, she felt secure .
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be happy,” Jaskier said, and it made her breath stutter.
She kissed him. One moment, she was close to crying on his Temerian silk, and then his lips were hot against hers, pressing, yearning. Yennefer rose onto her tiptoes, somehow not close enough, and she only broke the kiss when he had to take a steadying step back.
“Imagine my surprise,” Jaskier breathed. His eyes were bright but dazed, lips slowly curled at the edges. “Yennefer, truly try to put yourself in my fashionable, Cidarian boots.”
Her fingers toyed with the longer hairs at the nape of his neck, letting him stew after his boots comment. Her resolve melted first, snow against the radiating sun of his smile, and she said, “Am I still in the mirror?”
Jaskier glanced up, and his fingers danced over her spine, sending pleasant shivers over her skin. He traced down, rubbing gentle circles against the divots in her back. She watched his ears tinge red and his brows pull together.
“My dear, you are still very much in the mirror,” he answered. He shifted in her arms, turning a darkened gaze back to her.
“And what am I doing?” Spoken as she neared his lips.
“Killing me slowly, darling. Oh .” His hands gripped her sides. “You and Geralt are so beautiful, so beautiful.”
“I’m going to kill him for making you wait so long,” Yennefer promised with a quick peck to his lips. Jaskier’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t try to pull away. He let himself be held, Yennefer nuzzling into his neck.
Geralt didn’t so much as interrupt their moment as fully tripped over the table next to the door , only catching himself from breaking his damn neck through his Witcher reflexes.
“Geralt,” Yennefer acknowledged coldly. Her arms tightened possessively around Jaskier’s neck.
“This is what I saw,” Geralt choked out.
Paradoxically, the room relaxed. Yennefer expected Geralt to bolt like he always did after speaking in full sentences. She expected Jaskier to pull away from her. Most of all, she expected her walls to come up like a fire catching dry tinder. The emptiness where there were usually flames was just… relief. Jaskier’s hands warm at her back. Geralt’s eyes wide with worry and a little hope. All she desired in life, apparently, was to be happy. And here it was, breathing against her chest, dusting off pants knees after a truly spectacular fall.
“Geralt, come here please,” Jaskier said quietly. Geralt almost stumbled again, but he made it over to them, golden eyes darting back and forth. Jaskier moved tenderly, not breaking her hold on his neck, but he turned, bringing a hand to Geralt’s face. He said, “I’m going to kiss you know.”
And they did.
Yennefer felt nothing but a rightness, a completion. Like reading the last words of a very good book. As she watched their lips part, kiss heating up, she felt something else blossom in her too. If Jaskier thought she and Geralt looked good, then he needed to see how he looked with the Witcher. With a smirk, she put her hand on Geralt’s chest and shoved. He broke the kiss with a growl, and it sharpened playfully when he caught the glint in her eye.
“Share,” Yennefer instructed, and Geralt’s eyes darkened, tongue swiping restlessly against his bottom lip.
Yennefer turned Jaskier back to her, and she wasted no time in showing Geralt exactly what he’d been missing for twenty years. She felt his warm, strong arm wind across her back and knew the other was wound around Jaskier. Geralt’s head bumped hers, and she pulled away even when Jaskier blindly chased her.
Jaskier groaned deep in his throat when her and Geralt’s lips met. To be fair, Yennefer knew it was spectacular. They’d known each other, been fucking each other, for so long; it was second nature to kiss and make the house fall down. When they parted, staring at each other so close, she whispered, “It’s going to be different this time.”
“Yes.” Geralt smiled—such a stupid, lovesick, happy smile—and he glanced at their bard. “It will.”
Yennefer sent the mirror to Aretuza with a note addressed to Tissaia: toss this in the eel pool, or whatever it is you do with dangerous magical objects.
Below Yennefer’s elegant script was a hastily scrawled addition: also, can you suggest any nondescript, wartime wedding venues with an eastern-facing garden?