Work Text:
“You’re doing great,” Triss murmurs, calm and reassuring. Her hand slides down Yennefer’s arm, lightly circles around her wrist, and then drops further, down enough to allow Yennefer to entwine their fingers. Triss beams at her. Yennefer never wants to stop being the cause of that smile, brilliant, beautiful. “Pris will tell us when she wants us to look right at her. Just keep looking at me.”
“Yeah, that’ll be a real hardship, you in that dress.” Yennefer lets her eyes wander over the delicate straps, the intricate stitching on the bodice, the subtle flower pattern, the bold blue of the fabric, the flare around Triss’s knees. It’s one of Triss’s favorites--one of Yen’s favorites, too, she doesn’t mind admitting; how could she do otherwise when it’s the dress Triss had worn on their first date, now so many years ago?--and when Priscilla had raided their combined closets earlier that morning in search of the perfect sets of outfits, both of them had insisted that this dress be featured.
“What, this old thing?”
With a mischievous grin, Triss raises their joined hands and does a twirl underneath. Her curls bounce with the movement, her dress swirls as she turns, and she ends in something approaching a curtsy, showing off the skirt of the dress and the way it shimmers in the light of the early spring sun. A sparkle dances in the depths of her warm brown eyes, and she is absolutely, without question, the most beautiful woman Yennefer has ever seen.
Love has always been something that Yennefer has kept close to her own heart, guarded carefully, kept quiet and locked up tight, as if speaking aloud about it to others will somehow diminish it, diffuse it throughout the air until she’s surrounded by nothing but wisps of it, futilely trying to grasp it and keep it her own.
Triss has never been that way. Love is like my flowers, she had whispered once, curled around Yennefer, her lips pressing careful kisses along the line of Yennefer’s collarbone. You tend to it, you nourish it, you shine the light on it, and oh, how it will grow.
Everywhere I see things that remind me that I love you. Why not tell you right then? Who cares who else is around to hear it?
That had taken some getting used to. In the early years, Yennefer had to fight the urge, when she was around others, to drop her voice and whisper I love you when ending a phone call to Triss, when parting ways after grabbing a quick lunch together. But that feeling has faded now with the light of Triss’s love shining on her. Yennefer revels in being in love. Sometimes she wants to go up to everyone she meets and say look at this thing we’ve made, her and I, this wondrous beautiful thing called love.
That part of Yennefer that wants to stand atop the highest building in the city and shout her love and her devotion to all those who care to hear (and even to those who don’t) can’t wait to see how these pictures turn out, can’t wait to send their smiling faces--immortalized forever in moments of true joy--to their closest friends, letting them know we’re in love and here’s when you can see us celebrate it. She doesn’t even know precisely what her face is doing at the moment, but she’s quite certain she’s been wearing an expression that can best be classified as unbearably fond the entire morning. She wants to see what that looks like on her: unbearable fondness, undeniable contentment, unparalleled affection.
Happiness. Triss makes her so very happy, and Yennefer wants to see it. She wants everyone to see it.
“Perfect,” Priscilla mutters from a few feet away. There’s a rustle as she moves something around in her bag, changing cameras, perhaps. Yennefer doesn’t know; she refuses to look away from Triss until she’s told to do so. “Let me switch to the Polaroid. That display is going to look so cool, I’m so glad you two are indulging me with that. I promise, you’re going to love that and you’re going to love these pictures. You’re giving me so much to work with, it’s amazing.”
Yennefer doesn’t have an artistic bone in her body. She appreciates art, music, but she has never herself had even the slightest bit of artistic talent, the ability to create. But sometimes, when she’s standing in a field of flowers, hand in hand with her fiancée, the sun shining down upon them from a near-cloudless sky, sometimes even she can discover an artistic inclination.
She bends down and plucks a daffodil from the bunch near her feet. She studies it for a moment, Priscilla snapping away in the background with her camera, and yes, yes, she knows what to do. She tucks it behind Triss’s ear, lets her fingers trail down Triss’s neck, lets her touch linger. Triss’s gaze softens, her lips part in a gentle sigh. Even Yennefer knows it’s the perfect picture.
“Oh,” Priscilla breathes. “Oh yes.”
Triss leans in, so close their noses are nearly touching, and Yennefer wants to dive into her eyes and get lost in them. “I thought you said you wouldn’t have any good ideas?”
Yennefer shrugs and steps closer; there’s no space between them now, none at all. “What can I say? Being someone’s muse agrees with me.”
There’s that unbearable fondness, but now it’s in Triss’s eyes. “I love you, Yen.”
“I love you, too.”
Yennefer hopes Priscilla gets a picture of her saying that. She would rather like to see what she looks like when she tells Triss she loves her.
*
It’s an all-day endeavor, this photoshoot. Six different outfit changes; locations all over the city; more well-wishing random strangers full of congratulations! and awwwwwww! and we just have to hear your proposal story! than Yennefer ever could have imagined existed.
And now here they stand: sipping champagne on a balcony of the ritziest restaurant in a four hundred mile radius, the lights of the city gleaming below and beyond, the radiance of the starlight above outshined only by the vision that is Triss in her deep red, floor-length, off-the-shoulder gown.
On a near-daily basis, Yennefer stops and contemplates the fact that this woman agreed to marry her, that this woman, at the same time, in fact, also asked Yennefer to marry her, and every time she thinks on it, the rush of good fortune that she feels is so overwhelming that her knees go a little weak and she is nearly overcome.
Priscilla’s camera beeps and whirrs in the background, and Yennefer knows she’ll want to get pictures of them dancing soon. This restaurant is a place where people make grand gestures and it has seen its share of spectacle--even now, some patrons are eyeing them with a curious glint in their gazes--and two women dancing while another woman photographs them will draw all the eyes to them, will send a ripple of murmurs--oh look how lovely and who do you think they are?--through the crowd, will cause a bit of a stir.
Rarely in her life has Yennefer been adverse to causing a bit of a stir when a stir needs to be caused, and after so many years of hiding her love away, she’s almost ready to swirl around the dance floor in her sky high stilettos and her dress slit almost all the way up her thigh and the most loving, most generous, most caring, most trustworthy, most amazing, most beautiful woman she’s ever known in her arms and proclaim to the world she is mine and I am hers and look at this love we’ve made, but for now she needs a moment, just one moment, a quiet moment to themselves.
She traces the flowers that start off sparse on the fabric near Triss’s wrist and grow more dense as they wind up her sleeve to her shoulder, and she leans in, whispers in Triss’s ear, the fall of Triss’s hair obscuring Yennefer from the camera’s all-seeing watch. “Thank you for saying yes. Thank you for asking me.”
Triss sets her champagne glass on the rail of the balcony and turns fully to Yennefer, resting both her hands on Yennefer’s cheeks, her gentle caress making Yennefer, as always, feel warm and comforted and oh so very loved. “Thank you for asking me. Thank you for saying yes.”
Their lips meet, and in three weeks, when all of their friends open their mail, that’s the picture they see.
Triss Merigold & Yennefer Vengerberg
July 17, 2021
Save the Date