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A dark forest stretched around her, continuing from one end of existence to the other, infinitely huge and never-ending. She’d been walking for days already. Portals didn't work here, and the moment she left, she would lose what little progress she'd made.
She tensed as something shifted behind a nearby tree, ready for whatever might leap out at her. So far, she'd yet to encounter any living beings in this infernal place, but it wouldn't do to get complacent.
Summoning a dagger to her hand with a thought, Yennefer stepped closer to where she'd heard the noise. Nothing moved.
Another step yielded the same results. And again, until she had circled the tree in its entirety, finding nothing that might have made any noise.
Geralt had warned her that this would be difficult. Perhaps impossible. And she had believed him, especially after having read the notes he'd collected from the same place he'd met the creature she was now trying to find.
She just hadn't quite anticipated how desolate the poor bastard's mind would be.
Nothing but trees and shadow as far as the eye could see, and further still than that.
Fucking Ireneus. She’d thankfully had only one interaction with the disgusting little worm, but even then she had known he was a kind of twisted that most mages could only aspire to.
And now she was trying to bring life back to the broken shell of a witcher that Ireneus had used as a plaything.
If only she could fucking well find him!
Leaves rustled, and Yennefer spun on her heel, coming face to face with… nothing. Again.
She was beginning to wonder if it was even possible to help the man. The longer she walked, the less she was sure he was still present, even in his own mind. Maybe Ireneus had scooped out every last mote of consciousness the witcher had in order to create the perfect attack dog.
Well, dog was perhaps an ironic descriptor, but that was hardly the point.
Yennefer kept walking. The direction didn't really matter all that much, so long as she was moving. The trees never changed, nor did the dim light. She could walk for miles and still end up exactly where she was, never turning once.
She heard a whimper, and walked faster. Toward the sound, rather than away, as most would be smart to do.
Pale arms were wrapped around the trunk of a tree, fingers clawing at the bark as the whimpering continued. All Yennefer could see of the person, hopefully Kiyan, was their arms from just below the shoulder.
"Kiyan?" she called out, stepping carefully. "Kiyan of the Cats. I'm here to lead you back out of this forest."
The whimpering did not cease, nor was there any indication that she had been heard.
Yennefer slowed her steps, hesitating for no more than the space of a breath, before setting her shoulders and walking around the tree.
A pale face was pressed to the trunk, eyes clenched shut, tears leaking down bone-white cheeks. Raven-dark hair had been shoddily cut close to his scalp.
"Stop. Stop. Please, stop," Kiyan begged, voice ragged and so far beyond desperate that he sounded almost blank.
"Let go of the tree, Kiyan," Yennefer said, as gently as she could manage. "Let go, and follow me. I need to get you out of here. People are missing you."
She didn't know if that was true. For all she knew, Kiyan was an utter prick, and nobody had given the slightest shit when he disappeared. But Lambert was an utter prick, and she knew how much it would hurt Geralt for his brother to disappear without a trace. Perhaps Kiyan really did have people who missed him.
"I don't think he can hear anything."
Yennefer whirled to face the intruder, startled enough to almost forget to summon a dagger.
The young man facing her was clearly Kiyan, as he had once been. Handsome, in an angular way, with silken black hair tied out of his face in a loose braid. His eyes were a warm gold, and his medallion sat gleaming on his chest.
"No matter what you say to him, he will stay there, and keep making that sound. I don't think he knows where he is," Kiyan said, glancing to his other self with sad eyes.
"Do you know where you are?" Yennefer asked, curious as to how aware this other part of Kiyan was.
"Oh, I'm not really here," he answered, giving her a roguish smile. "I'm just a figment. A memory of something that no longer exists. But we're in his mind. You're not a figment though. You don't look like the other one."
"Other one?" Yennefer repeated, mind whirling over just how cognizant this "figment" was.
Young Kiyan smiled again. "She lives near the heart. You can't get to her. But she's what we sometimes wish we could be. Sometimes she lives beside Adrien. Sometimes there's a wall."
Yennefer took a moment to digest the information she had been given, turning it over in her mind as though inspecting a particularly interesting stone.
"I suppose she is not who I need to concern myself with, at the moment," she conceded, nodding to Young Kiyan. He had been forthcoming so far, and as much as Yennefer longed to hunt down every last scrap of information, that was not what her purpose here was.
Young Kiyan held an arm out to her, sweeping an exaggerated bow. "You're in the wrong part of the forest for what you're looking for," he said, grinning at her when she frowned.
It was no use arguing that she hadn't been able to leave that part of the forest, she was sure.
"I can only take you part of the way, but if you can find Little One, he can show you the right path," Young Kiyan said as she took his arm, as elegant as any queen.
Yennefer nodded, eyes roaming the forest as they walked. In the distance, she could occasionally make out more figures. Most hid when they drew too close. One or two peeked out from behind trees to watch them pass.
The place Young Kiyan stopped seemed entirely arbitrary, but his feet remained rooted to the spot, as though taking even a single step more would be impossible.
"This is where I leave you, Lady Mage," he said, his smile wavering at the edges. "Little One knows the way from here. Be wary of the Intruder. Little One is afraid of them, and won't go near. They aren't meant to be here. They aren't one of us."
Yennefer nodded. It seemed Ireneus had succeeded in forcing another being into Kiyan's body.
"Before you go," she said, as Young Kiyan turned to leave, "I must ask; why is it that Little One can travel wherever he chooses, and yet you cannot? Is he not another figment?"
Young Kiyan's eyes went soft. "He is from another time. He's from a time before our roads were set, and so he is free, and always will be."
Yennefer nodded. She would be looking for a child that had not yet been subjected to the Grasses, then.
Young Kiyan faded back into the trees, slipping into a shadow and disappearing from sight. Yennefer was alone again.
She walked for a while, looking for anything that might indicate life, ears straining to catch any sound. A giggle was her only clue to a presence near her.
Around and around she went, hunting for the source of the laughter, always a step behind. The little brat was playing with her, she realised. A smile crossed her lips.
"I hear a little kitten," she called, stepping lightly as she followed the sound of hastily muffled giggles. "I know you're there, Little One. I'm going to catch you."
In spite of herself, in spite of the dire state the poor Cat’s mind was in, Yennefer found herself laughing too. She missed playing with Ciri, now that her daughter was grown. She missed that carefree laughter, and the knowledge that she had caused it.
"I'm coming to catch you, Little One," Yennefer said, grinning. "And when I do, I'm going to… eat you!" She heard another giggle, and turned on her heel, scooping up the child to tickle his belly, grinning as he shrieked with laughter.
"You got me!" Little One cried, flinging his arms around her neck.
His wide eyes were a rich brown, much darker than she'd expected.
"I caught you, indeed, Little One," Yennefer agreed, shifting him so that he sat more comfortably on her hip. "I'm told you're the very smart young man who can show me where I need to go, but it looks like you're just a little monster."
"Nooooo!" he laughed, shaking his head so that his shaggy hair flew in every direction. "I can show you! You wanna find the sad man."
The boy went quiet for a moment.
"The sad man is very close to the bad one," he said, voice hushed by fear.
Yennefer began to walk, still holding Little One as she strode through the trees.
"What can you tell me about the bad one?" she asked gently. "Has he tried to hurt you, or the sad man?"
Little One shook in her arms. "He hurt the sad man when he first came here. He wanted to leave, but we can't, and he was angry. The sad man fell asleep for a long time, and when he woke up he was very sad."
That was… strangely informative. Yennefer would need to find a solution to the Intruder problem, if he was likely to attack Kiyan from within after she had brought him out. She’d need to find some way of removing the interloper, and soon.
"Sometimes he looks like the sad man," Little One whispered. "He looks like the sad man and says mean things, and it makes the sad man cry."
It was clear the boy feared the Intruder, though Yennefer wasn't sure she could help him any.
"When we get close, I want you to point me to where the sad man is, and then you can go back to playing," she instructed.
Little One nodded, clinging tightly to her shoulders.
"You're here to help the sad man, right?" he asked. "The magic man said he was going to help, but he just hurt the sad man lots. When he hurt the sad man, it hurt all of us, and it made me sad too."
Yennefer hugged him tight.
"I'm going to help the sad man," she promised. "And by helping the sad man, I might be able to help you too. But I promise you that the other mage will never harm you again."
Little One returned her hug, trembling just a little. The poor dear must have been terrified.
They walked in silence for a time, before Little One pointed toward a barely-visible path curving toward them.
"Follow that, and you'll find the sad man," he said. "But you have to be nice to him, okay?"
Yennefer gave him a soft smile, setting him on his feet once more.
"I swear to be the very nicest I've ever been," she told him, straightening his wild hair with her fingers.
Little One gave her a decisive nod, then darted off back into the shadows of the forest, giggling again. Back to whatever memories did when they were unwatched.
Yennefer followed the path. She walked for what seemed like years, until she began to see more figures hiding behind trees. She could hear them whispering on the wind.
"Who's there?"
"Don't go!"
"This is not the end."
"Someone's coming, quick!"
Their faces were hidden from her, though most had long, dark hair, much like Young Kiyan's.
"Kiyan of the Cats," she called out. "I am here to lead you home."
There was a wave of silence following the proclamation, and then -
"Home? I want to go home!"
A figure ripped itself away from a tree, falling to battered knees at her feet. Kiyan. As ruined as he had been when Geralt had brought him to her. He barely looked human.
"Please… please, I just want to go home. I want to see my family."
A second figure, Kiyan as he must have looked before Ireneus, threw himself at her, begging before she'd even truly registered his presence.
"You can't let him out! Please! Please, he'll cause only destruction! Don't let him out! You can't let us out!"
Voices rang out around her, begging for home, for family, for their continued imprisonment. They begged for escape in whatever form she would give it. They begged her not to let the madman loose.
"Quiet!" She roared. Silence fell. "Where is the one that Little One calls the sad man?"
The two before her stood to their feet.
"One of us is the sad man," the ruined one said. "We no longer know which. Please, let me see my family again. I fear for them. I want only to know that they're safe."
She could not give him that. She knew it was not true.
"Please! Neither of us can be allowed to leave! One of us is the monster, and we've grown so confused. If the monster gets out, he will destroy everything in his path."
How could they not know which was which? How could they have become confused? Had Ireneus broken even the creature's mind while forcing the bond?
"I must take one of you," she said. "I swore I would help the sad man."
They each continued to plead with her, though neither made more sense than the other.
Without stopping them, she reached a hand out, fingers closing around milk-white skin as she took Kiyan by the wrist and pulled.
"Come with me, Kiyan, and see your family," she said. "You are each alike at this stage, and until that changes, I will have one of you."
They fell through the forest, and the universe shivered, then spat them out back into their bodies.
She'd done as she'd been asked.