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The room was, quite possibly, a write-off. Not only had the glass been blown out of the windows to scatter across the garden outside, but the frames, the jambs and even the walls surrounding where the windows used to be were all cracked and splintered with the force of the power that had exploded outwards. There was crystal from the shattered chandelier still partially dangling above her sparkling in the night sky of her dark curls, and spiderweb thin cuts spread across the exposed skin of her arms, neck and face from when the shards now peppering the floor had been whipped around the room in the frenzy. The trestle table was split, the chairs reduced to so much kindling, the door hanging loosely by a single hinge, her delicate equipment broken, her books battered, tossed ink speckled the whole mess and her scattered notes were on fire as they drifted down to settle around the space. The moment she had the bare minimum of her wits required for action, she moved to stomp those out quickly before anything else could catch and burn; no one knew better than she how dangerous an untended fire could be. As she dealt with the last of them that she could see for the moment, the ringing in her ears finally started to fade... only to be replaced with an equally unpleasant sound. If the state of the room wasn’t enough of a testament to Yennefer’s failure, the shrieking priestess was certainly an obvious hint.
The urge to slap the hysterical woman bubbled up quickly, but the calculating mind that had effortlessly danced through decades of court politics sternly reminded her that she was a guest in this temple, and more than that, a guest who had just precipitated the destruction of the space she had been graciously afforded for her work. So Yennefer settled for a muttered, “Shut up, you stupid cow,” as she scanned the detritus for anything salvageable. A quick look down told her that her tattered and ink spattered gown was not to be included in that list.
The slapping sound of the impact of flesh on flesh snapped her head up from her search to see that Nenneke, matron of this temple to Melitele, had arrived and apparently had as little patience for histrionics as the sorceress. “Flore! Who is that noise helping? Think, girl!” The high priestess crossed her arms, surveying the chaos with a dispassionate eye. “And get a broom.”
Flore, still sniffling, scurried off to comply with her mistress’ demands and Yennefer sent a great deal of resentful thoughts to speed her way. The witless acolyte hadn’t done anything more than open the door when she had heard an unholy cacophony erupting behind it, but even so Yennefer felt perfectly comfortable laying a great deal of the blame for the mess at her rapidly retreating feet. Clearly, if Yennefer hadn’t been distracted at that crucial moment, she would have somehow been able to rescue the situation as opposed to allowing it to explode. Nevermind that the whirlwind was already in full force and uncomfortably testing her limits by the time Flore cracked the door open; Yennefer had had it somewhat contained, if only barely, and she undoubtedly would have thought of something if she’d had a second more to think. The sudden presence of the young priestess, though, and the need to ensure said priestess was not cut to ribbons by the already airborne glass, had stolen Yennefer’s attention away from her young protégé for a critical second, and in that instant she had lost her tenuous grasp on containing the exploding power and then lost her focus on her own protective shield, which was followed quickly by losing the windows and then losing—
“Where’s Ciri?” Yennefer suppressed a growl—gods, she was picking up bad habits from Geralt—as Nenneke, in her usual way and with no undue artifice, cut to the centre of the issue.
The sorceress shook the sharp dust from her hair, ran the back of her forearm across her forehead in a gesture which was intended to remove some of the sweat but which actually only succeeded in depositing more blood and grime, and gestured with frustration toward the door. “Gone. Scarpered off who knows where.”
The look of utter fear in Ciri’s eyes when she’d seen what Yennefer had let her do stung far worse than any of the myriad cuts she had sustained. She’d promised Ciri that she had it under control, promised that it wasn’t too much to handle, and promised that her power was safe in Yennefer’s skilled hands. All evidence seemed to indicate that she’d lied.
With a sniffle—not that she was close to tears or anything, there was just a lot of dust in the air—Yennefer bent to collect some books from the rubble so that she didn’t have to meet Nenneke’s gaze. Nevertheless, she could feel an unimpressed brow raised in disapproval. “Was she hurt?”
Yennefer turned from her work to give the old priestess an exasperated and disparaging look that clearly said, ‘What do you take me for, that I would be sulking here amongst the ruins of my failed work, if Ciri was actually wounded and needed help? What do you take me for that I, who promised to look out for her, would let her come to harm?’
Nenneke clicked her tongue and strode carefully but purposefully over the mess to where the sorceress was sulkily stacking the volumes that had not been buffeted beyond usefulness. The old woman didn’t ask before she grabbed one of Yennefer’s arms in a surprisingly strong grip and clinically began to assess the worst of the wounds. Mercifully, she kept to her task and didn’t linger on the old scars clearly visible on the witch’s wrists. Not that Yennefer was self-conscious of them or anything; she had been the one who had asked to keep them when she was being remade, after all. But still, it was a mark of the other’s professionalism that the professional in Yennefer acknowledged. Nenneke and Yennefer didn’t necessarily get along per se, but whatever tentative peace they could find between them at times was founded on a modicum of mutual respect. Which was why, although she was still annoyed and didn’t particularly want to be touched, the sorceress allowed the old woman her fussing.
Nenneke hummed in satisfaction as she prodded at the cuts; an indication that she didn’t think any of them were particularly deep or in need of stitches. “Well, the girl will come back when she’s hungry.”
“Ha!” Yennefer yanked her arm back, annoyance bubbling over into an edge of hysteria. She hated the sound of it in her voice and tried to suppress it as she snapped, “That’s the wisdom of your great goddess is it? That’s what the mother of mothers would recommend? You think this is like burning a bundt cake or leaving the milk out to spoil or whatever pathetic infractions you used to get up to as a girl?”
She cradled her face in her hands for a moment, a move that could have easily been construed as an attempt to clean her face, but was in reality a blessed moment of reprieve from the world. Why she had ever thought she wanted a child was currently beyond her. She was clearly not equipped for the responsibility. She hadn’t had Ciri eight weeks and already the girl was lost to her. Whatever motherly instinct she had once possessed, if indeed she did ever possess any at all, had clearly been burned out of her at her ascension.
Moment of self depreciation past—Yennefer knew damn well that didn’t help anyone, least of all herself—she dropped her hands to fists at her sides and took a deep breath through her nose before continuing in the same clipped tone. “Ciri is a Source! Her ability to control that will literally affect the rest of her unnatural life! I just fucked up, putting the whole temple at risk, not to mention Ciri herself, who is now never going to trust me again—and rightfully so!—and you say, ‘Oh well, girls will be girls. She’ll be home when she’s cried herself out?’”
For several long seconds, Yennefer thought Nenneke was going to slap her as she had Flore, but, likely also more accustomed to politics more than she would willingly admit, the elderly priestess instead placed both hands on her own hips and drawled sarcastically, “Oh, it’s the end of the world is it? Everything over with no hope for salvation? I didn’t realize. I’ll get the girls to chanting the appropriate supplications for the end times right away.”
Yennefer shot her another scathing look. “Mock me all you want, old woman, but I can assure you this feels like the end of the world to Ciri and it’s more than likely the end of her training with me! You don’t even know what that means. If you had any idea what you were actually dealing with here, what she is actually dealing with—”
“Everything feels like the end of the world when you’re fifteen. I can’t help but assume it’s been an awfully long time from then to now for the illustrious Yennefer of Vengerberg, but cast your mind back through the mists and see if you can’t remember. The burnt cake feels like the end of the world, the spoiled milk too, but not because you were silly enough to think the stability of the world spun on perfectly crisped confectionery. What did your mother tell you when you messed up? I can’t hardly imagine this is the first room you’ve destroyed.”
“My mother,” Yennefer bit out between clenched teeth, “was content to let my father sell me for four marks to someone they had never met, so don’t get all high and mighty on me about how the wondrous Melitele inspires some sort of saintly state of motherhood on someone when-”
Nenneke rolled her eyes and interrupted again. Yennefer absolutely detested being interrupted. “Not whatever wench squirted you out back in the dawn of time. The woman who raised you.” She reached out quickly, belying her age, to pinch a spark that had fallen from the precariously hanging remains of the chandelier and caught in Yennefer’s hair into so much harmless smoke. “What did she say when you set yourself on fire, hmm?”
She was probably speaking metaphorically, but Yennefer had, in fact, set herself on fire when she was fifteen. Fire was one of the most fickle and chaotic elements; drawing from it as a source of spells was outright forbidden, but manipulation of it was tentatively taught to students at Aretuza. From a small candle, they each took a flicker and held it gently in their hands. The flame burned brightly for those who were adept and sufficiently channelled the force around them to feed it and sputtered out pathetically for those with less control. The colour of the flame also varied, pupil to pupil, from the more traditional oranges, yellows and reds to brilliant whites, depending on how hot they could make it burn.
Yennefer, as soon as she had reached for the fire, was quickly engulfed in purple flame.
It had only been for a second before Sabrina had tackled her and, by rolling the both of them around on the floor, smothered the fire, but it was enough for her to require medical attention. Lying in the infirmary, swathed in aloe as her skin blistered and cracked, she could hear some of the other girls whispering about how she was cursed, how the purple flames meant something evil was inside of her, raging to get out.
Tissaia had snorted, though, when Yennefer, half-delirious with fever, had repeated their speculations to her. “It was just fire, piglet.”
“It was purple! Like my eyes! Like—” Yennefer cut herself off, not wanting to loudly proclaim her half-elven heritage to the entire infirmary. Tissaia knew anyway. “And it was everywhere! Consuming me! How can you say—”
“You were in the greenhouse before class, weren’t you?” The rectoress’ voice, always so controlled, was like cool water on scorched skin, or solid ground in the centre of a hurricane. “You spend almost as much time down there as Merigold did. And you always come back covered in fertilizer, as if you roll in it like the pigs you grew up with. What were you working with in particular?
The memory of her humble beginnings stung and Yennefer bit her lip. “Potash, but I don’t see—”
“Which contains?”
“Potassium salts.”
The tiniest of smiles graced Tissaia’s mouth. “And potassium burns?”
Yennefer’s fuzzy brain, instinctively wanting to please, managed to supply, “Purple…”
Tissaia gestured as if to say, ‘Well, there’s your answer.’
Yennefer furrowed her brow. “But—”
“Just because magic and prophecies do exist, doesn’t mean that everything is some kind of auspicious portent. You’re clever, Yennefer; use that brain. Even with all your chaos, it’s still your greatest asset. The flame was purple because of the potassium and it was so strong because…”
“... because I’m strong.”
Tissaia did smile at that, a bright moment they shared before she schooled her face back into stoicness. “Don’t let it get to your head. You’re hardly the first girl to ever set herself on fire. It happens.”
Yennefer scoffed. “And despite that you don’t change the curriculum because…”
“I hardly have to explain myself to you, piglet, but it is because”—Tissaia stood and turned to leave—”lighting yourself on fire can be a useful lesson: a lesson in control, a lesson in consequences, a lesson in getting back up, and a lesson in how fire, no matter how strong or oddly coloured, is just fire. There is something in its power to respect, as there is in all elements, but nothing to fear.”
“Then why is drawing from fire forbidden?” Even as a child, Yennefer had been contrary.
Tissaia turned back, clearly thinking for a second before glancing around to ensure they were alone. “Rules are always there for a reason and that reason always has to do with the masses, not the individual. Once you know what that reason is, and the consequences of invoking it, you know whether it is right for you to follow that rule or not.”
From then on, Yennefer had found fire to be a sort of friend. She learned quickly that a reputation for being different could be useful, if you knew how to control it: oh so carefully feeding it fuel while preventing it from growing into a conflagration that would consume your whole self. She didn’t shy from the fire at her ascension, didn’t flinch from it when it was thrown at her—figuratively at banquets and literally on battlefields—during her days as a court mage, didn’t retreat from the metaphorical desert of her desertion of the Brotherhood, but boldly crossed the obstacle before her to follow her own burning passions. Finally, at Sodden, Yennefer, with Tissaia’s encouragement, had willfully broken the taboo. She had called on the essence of fire as a last resort to save their battered forces from the Nilfgaardian invasion, almost burning herself to ash in the process, but was ultimately able to hold the line, even managing to sculpt the notoriously fickle element around her belaboured mentor like an artist flicking a brush of colour across a canvas. The infamously unflappable rectoress of Aretuza had been undeniably impressed by that feat.
Here and now, in Ellander, Yennefer stamped pointedly on a still smoldering section of carpet. “I have to go find Ciri.”
“You have to clean up your mess.” Nenneke walked to where Flore was standing in the doorway, clutching the broom as a talisman before her. The skittish girl had obviously returned sometime during Yennefer's rumination. Nenneke took the broom from her and made to offer it to Yennefer, but the sorceress brushed past them both and out the door. “Yennefer, I am serious! I am not making my girl’s pick up after your- Yennefer! Damn it! Yennefer!”
After a brief hunt, she found Ciri curled up into a ball at the back of the garden, knees drawn to her chin, near where she would retreat from the other students to practice her swordwork. The ashen haired princess was no longer crying, but the tear tracks were still fresh on her smudged face. Seeing the sorceress’ approach, she buried her face in her knees, arms wrapped tightly around her bent legs. She looked a mess, but then again, Yennefer supposed she hardly looked any better. Without a thought for her ruined skirts, she flopped down in the grass beside Ciri. “Here you are. Is that how the witchers raised you, hm? To run away after you’d made a mess?”
She could feel the girl flinch beside her at the accusation and heard the hiccup of a suppressed sob. “A mess? Is that what you’d call it? Yennefer, I summoned-”
“A bit of wind,” the sorceress interrupted smoothly. “From what I’ve heard, it seems the element your family is most strongly attuned towards, so that’s hardly a surprise is it?”
“A bit of wind?!?” Ciri finally looked up. “I destroyed the room! I could have hurt someone! I did hurt you!” Her eyes blinked back tears at the sight of the scratches marring Yennefer’s normally smoothly painted visage. “It’s too dangerous. I’m too dangerous. Maybe I should have just let Nilfgaard—”
“You’re hardly the first girl to ever destroy a room before she had a grip on her power,” Yennefer tutted. “Besides, I knew the risks when I started the experiment, and no one was seriously harmed. I’m in charge of your schooling, so I’m in charge of the risks I’m willing to take with my own safety. And really, it’s all the more reason to study, isn’t it?” She nudged the girl with her shoulder. “Just because something is dangerous, doesn’t mean you should fear it. And you’re strong, yes, but you’re hardly some kind of uncontrollable monster just because you whipped up a little whirlwind.”
The green-eyed girl bit the inside of her cheek, clearly undecided on the matter. “But—”
“Ciri,” Yennefer insisted, schooling her voice to be like cool water or solid ground, “No matter how wild or wondrous its origins, that storm wasn’t some eternal sentence of damnation handed down from on high. It was just wind.”
“Just wind?” the girl repeated quietly.
“Just wind.” Yennefer smiled. “I'm intimately familiar with it, after all. Fire always has a way of whipping it up. They feed off each other, you know, make each other stronger. They’ve always been partners, fire and wind.”
“Hmm.” Ciri rubbed at her grubby face and Yennefer longed for a warm bath they could both douse themselves in. Nevertheless, she bit her tongue and sat with the girl in companionable silence. Another lesson she had learned at Aretuza: a little mud was a reasonable price to pay to see something you had planted sprout. Finally, with one last sniffle, the little princess offered, “Should we go back and help clean up?”
“Oh gods, no!” Yennefer exaggeratedly exclaimed. “Nenneke is of a mind to make me sweep! If I know that old bat, she won’t be able to manage leaving the room like that for long. The mess will prickle at her overly organized brain like buzzing insects at rotting meat, and she’ll have her girls on it in no time. We can definitely outlast her. How do you feel about a walk down to the orchards? See if we can’t snag a snack. Conjuring is hungry work.”
Ciri furrowed her brow, “But you said—”
“Witchers are good at cleaning up messes, even other people’s, and I thought they would have attempted to force that awfully responsible mindset on you. I’m glad it didn’t take. Rules like that were entirely made for the masses, not the likes of you and I. Everyone clever knows when to listen to a rule and when to realize it doesn’t apply to them. You’re a princess and I’m a very powerful sorceress, we are far too important to be tidying like common scullery maids.”
“I think,” Ciri smiled, “You just don’t like tidying, Yennefer of Vengerberg.”
Yennefer winked and they both laughed together brightly. She threw an arm around the girl, and pulled her close as they strolled leisurely away from the smoking room. That warm contact was not something Tissaia had ever done for her, but it felt somehow right in the moment. Perhaps, she thought idly, she was inspired by the great mother goddess whose gardens they were skulking in after all. “Did I ever tell you about the time I lit myself on fire?”