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Being a mage seemed like a glamorous profession, and really chaos and magic was all Yennefer had ever been good at until her ascension. Being a mage was all she knew. She’d never really had much choice, it was this or end up like an eel in the waters beneath Aretuza, and she wanted to survive. She wanted more than that. She wanted to thrive, to have power, beauty… everything the world could offer her. She’d already had her childhood taken away from her, she refused to lose anything else.
But with beauty came… expectations.
She scoffed. Who was she kidding? The expectations had come before that. A girl who knew nothing about friendships had been rushed off to some fucking magic school and she’d still managed to be a freak… until she’d found Istredd.
He’d been kind.
And a friend.
She’d never had a friend before, so the warmth in her chest had been easy to mistake for love, the longing for closeness, easy to mistake for lust. She’d enjoyed the sex, but more than anything she’d enjoyed having his attention on her, being seen, being wanted. Then later on she’d enjoyed showing off her magic, the illusions of a crowd that watched them, and even applauded.
It took decades for her to realise the truth.
When she looked at Istredd, and later on Geralt, and the other handfuls of nameless lovers in between, she didn’t… feel things. Not like the stories, songs and poems described. She could see they were handsome, beautiful even but there wasn’t that pull. She slept with them because it made her feel good, having their undivided attention, not because she necessarily wanted them, it was why the fucking bard annoyed her so completely.
He was obsessed with love, in his poems, songs, even in the depths of his mind. He was so hopelessly in love with Geralt that it made her sick. The witcher didn’t have a fucking clue either, pining over her, tricked by the bond the djinn had created, but she’d seen his mind before, when he’d first bought Jaskier to her.
She’d seen love. She felt the echo of his love, and felt it again once he’d made his wish.
But that wasn’t her.
She saw Geralt and she saw a friend, an asset at times, occasionally an annoyance. Geralt was in love her, and she…
She didn’t feel the same.
She didn’t want to feel the same.
Love would bind her when she didn’t want to be bound. She wanted to live by her rules. She wanted to be free from the shackles of love. She let out a sigh of relief. She djinn wish no longer held her captive. She might run into Geralt more often than not as they travelled around the continent but she could leave him without pain, and without jealousy when she watched the bard trail after him pathetically.
She grimaced. She’d seen Jaskier after the dragon hunt and he’d been a broken man.
It hadn’t been her fault per se but… she’d felt a twinge of guilt. She could fix that, and then she would continue in her life free from the whims of men. If she couldn’t have a child of her own then perhaps she could pull a similar trick to Geralt. There were plenty of opportunities for a successful sorceress to call the Law of Surprise. She’d saved countless lives over the years, she was rich enough to last her a life time. If Geralt could earn a child surprise then… perhaps she could too.
She could still have power and beauty, and she could have a child too. It was her choice. Hers.
And no one would take that away from her again.