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Jaskier runs through the tavern and waves, a bit lazily, at Geralt and Yennefer. A few moments later, a swarthy, tall, tall, very tall man comes rumbling through with an axe. “Where is he! Where is that filthy shit?”
No one answers, but a drunk old man warbles, “filthy shit, filthy shit,, only for the goat t’ go bleaaaaat…” before passing out on the table.
Geralt sighs. Deeply. And then gets up. Yennefer eyes him. “Are you truly going to go save that twig from the consequences of his own actions?” She sips her wine. He shrugs.
“Jaskier isn’t anywhere he’s not wanted,” is all he says before he goes after them. Yennefer watches the curve of his back and the way he rolls one shoulder back.
Sometimes, she really wonders what Geralt sees in the nitwit.
In the deep, dark woods, there’s a grassy little clearing. In the grassy little clearing, there’s a dusty little cottage. In the dusty little cottage, Yennefer finds a large painting and a cup of clear water on the ground.
It would be wholly unremarkable except the painting is moving, and Geralt is crouched in the center, a hundred vines twining around him, a slither of movement; each moment, they tighten with greedy malice and Yennefer knows, in the deepest part of her magic, that he should have been dead by the time of her arrival.
If not for a little yellow bird pecking at the vines. The painting is silent and the color is bleeding off the corners, but the endless flutter of movement trails slashes of iridescence everywhere the bird goes. It shears pieces off here and there, the last bastion of safety for an erstwhile Witcher.
Yennefer glares at the dusty cottage walls, the poisonous shrieking rage in the spell around them, and crushes her heel into the cup of water. She presses one single finger to the bird and her spell takes shape, a silvery wraith that coalesces into a star. It burns into the bird, a stark silver mark upon its beating breast.
She watches the paint spill, sickly sweet smelling, to the floor below. There’s a crunch, like the sound of a breaking bone, and she watches the canvas spill out, like molasses from a bucket. It comes down like a river, slow and a trickle a first, and then a torrential flood that she backs away from. Shapes form in thickness and begin to rise and Jaskier shoots up, sludge flinging off of him. He takes a deep breath, one, two, three, and looks wildly around, a fright in his blue eyes. He spots Yennefer and then looks back down into the paint and dives, sinking beneath the surface, deeper than the floor should allow.
There’s no clock, but she can feel the thrum of her heart like a ticking bomb, waiting, waiting, waiting and then Jasker explodes out, one arm wrapped like iron locks around Geralt’s waist.
A stray thought. He isn’t breathing.
Jaskier drags him to the edge, to Yennefer, rasps like his voice has been screaming this entire time. “Please.”
She slams one fist into Geralt’s chest, feels the thrum of magic bounce back at her, and she pushes, she shoves, she shoves hard and Geralt gasps a breath like a newborn babe, like the sun rising on the morning ocean.
Geralt groans and opens his eyes, Sees Yennefer and is stunned. And then he laughs. He actually laughs. “Yen.”
This is a sweet moment, Yennefer knows it, but somehow the first stray thought to come into her head isn’t for Geralt. Her eyes move to the side and she turns her head to look at Jaskier. Who crouches on the floor, unmoving, and is the one who kept Geralt from certain death. His love is what saved them. The thought nestles itself in her brain.
Geralt bolts up. “Jaskier.”
“I’m here, I’m here.” The bard crawls forward and places a hand on his shoulder. “We’re safe, thanks to Yennefer here! A beautiful tale of a dashing Witch who breaks spells on poor bards and ensorcelled Witchers.”
As Geralt turns to Yen and begins to roughly thank her, she sees Jaskier smile a one-sided smile. It’s a smile of relief, of care, of a brainless little bard, who saves the world by loving the unlovable. He presses a hand to the silver star on his chest, catches her eye. He presses a finger to his lips.
A little girl in the mud stares up and up and up. Looks at Jaskier and thinks, this one should be mine.
There’s a shout, a clang or two, and Yennefer glances out the window of her new shop just as a too-familiar bard runs past it. A group of men chase after and she pauses a moment, before scoffing. She sets down the pestle she’d been grinding sassafras leaves in, and draws a sign before a portal appears. Jaskier appears half a second later and skids to a halt in shock. She snaps her fingers and the portal disappears, right before she hears the cacophony of bodies colliding into a semi-solid barrier.
He blinks at her. “Oh, hello, witch.” Blue eyes skitter around. “New place to begin an orgy?
“Mayor Kasper is a dear friend of mine, and I doubt he’d like homely little scrubs loitering around, enraging his townspeople,” Yennefer says, picking up the pestle again to hand it to Jaskier. “Now, make yourself useful and grind these into a paste for me.”
There’s a pause and Jaskier opens his mouth to undoubtedly say something useless and snippy; Yennefer looks pointedly out the window and then at him. He heaves a great sigh, as if all the gods are intent torturing him, and then picks up the stone. “Haven’t seen you in a bit, Yennefer, what have you been up to?”
She measures several potent liquids out before she avoids the question. “I’m surprised you’re not with Geralt yet, I saw him a month ago, and he mentioned that you had some mundane bard competition in Vizima you had to attend.”
Jaskier is quiet and then responds, “yes, I suppose I did.”
“And?” Not that, Yennefer assures himself, she’s interested. But the town is so boring, and Geralt, for all the shit he doesn’t say, has obviously missed his little friend when his offhand plans are to head north (conveniently on the road toward the competition) after their few nights together.
“It was a worthy battle, and many of my friends were also in competition, but a pity for them for I was determined, and justly, wonderfully so. My ballads captured their hearts, and my songs won their tears. I won.” The words are a measure of pride, but behind it all, the joy is stale and faded.
Yennefer frowns. “You sound as happy as a mewling lamb without its flock.”
Jaskier’s gaze slides to and past her. “I… you said you were with Geralt?”
Yennefer raises an eyebrow. “I sent a raven to him that I would be in Dorian for a personal matter, and that he could meet me there.” She turns more of her attention to him; she feels the room tilt in a queer manner. She doesn’t have a Witcher’s senses, but she can taste the tang of salt in the air, and something like a burn on the tips of her fingers. She watches Jaskier slowly grind the herbs, a mechanical motion that hides the fact that she knows she’s stepped close to a landmine.
Being Yennefer, she steps directly on it. “Geralt was supposed to meet you there, wasn’t he.” It’s not a question.
He shrugs. “Ah, he said he might. Didn’t even promise to try. But you know how it is, Geralt isn’t the sort to let something like a mundane bard competition come between him and his one true love.” His voice is airy, and Jaskier lifts his face to grin, but it looks all strange and hollow, and for some reason, Yennefer feels her hackles rise. “I’m making my way back to him. I just…” the bard pauses and then sets the pestle down. “I’m just taking my time.” And it’s almost cheerful.
Yennefer doesn’t feel guilt. She never feels guilt. And she isn’t going to feel guilty. Fucking Geralt, she thinks, an unfriendly thought that clips through her head. “He was heading north to Vizima, through Anchor.” She spells the liquids to go into a stasis; the glowing blue twinkles back at her and she’s satisfied with the work.
‘Well, that’s good. I’ll… I’ll continue onward then.” Jaskier does actually grin at her. “But I’m in no hurry; the life of a bard should be a meandering through village and dale; might I convince you to host me for a day or two while I replenish my stores?”
And really, this should be where Yennefer offers to portal him, if she was someone like Triss. And if this was three years ago, she would have booted him out with a threat.
“Who do you think I am, a fat innkeeper and his open rooms?” She snarks, before waving into the back. “Don’t touch anything in the laboratory. I’ll be here for a few days longer.” The mayor’s house is rumored to have an old family heirloom with fertility properties, and she just needs a bit more time before she coaxes it out of Kasper.
Jaskier brightens. “Do you have wine?”
Now, Yennefer feels insulted. “Again, who do you think I am, bard?” Two goblets appear, a rich, red wine in both of them. She settles back into one of the chairs. “Now, show me how your idiotic composition could possibly win a competition.”
At his first sip of wine, Jaskier trills with delight. “Oh, be prepared, my darling Yennefer. Be prepared to have your senses bathed in the warm beauty of Jaskier, the famous Bard!”
After downing his cup, and marveling at the way it slowly refills, Jaskier unclasps his lute and strums, the notes echoing down the halls of her temporary home, always bigger on the inside. He hums a few notes, tightens two pegs.
Jaskier sings, and Yennefer listens.
In the years that follow, when their paths cross, Yennefer never hesitates to take Geralt to bed. They’ve fucked across the continent and every time they separate, she resist the urge to twine herself back around him, to stay where he is. She doesn’t understand it, but something tells her there’s a reason they keep finding each other.
One should call it love, but a small part wonders. She finds herself turning the corner of her eye to Jaskier. He’s quicksilver; there are days he frowns when she appears, and others he deigns to give her a grin. Once, he wheedles Geralt to stay downstairs until she portals away in annoyance. Once, he sends them off with a saucy wink.
Always, he hisses and snarks and she cuts him right back. It’s thrilling, like a sharp blade on the edge of her skin.
(she remembers the mirror, she remembers the glass)
It’s a raucous night, where the moon bleeds bright. The whole village is out at the tavern and everyone is drunk as skunks and instead of going upstairs to meet with Geralt, she watches Jaskier flirt with a blacksmith in a dark corner, long, calloused fingers trailing up an arm. The blacksmith leans down to whisper something, A slight flush crawls up his neck and dusts his soft cheeks with pink. A thick arm comes around Jaskier’s waist and even in the dark corner, she can see the eager tremble in Jaskier’s throat as his lashes sweep low.
Yennefer drains her wine. The heat slides through her like candle fire and she licks her lips.
It’s a quiet night, campfire a merry burn that paints the forest in reds and oranges. In the morning, they would enter town where Geralt needs assistance with a contract. Yennefer lounges back on a conjured divan. Geralt is going through his gear and stores with the habit of someone long-used to deprivation. Except, nowadays she sees that he cleans his sword with a clear oil that smells like the forest. His shirt isn’t just a map of patches. His hair is clean and brushed.
His bard dotes on him so well. It’s a humorous thought, except Yennefer runs her tongue over her teeth and tastes the faint acrid bitterness of metal.
Jaskier is rummaging through his bag, and then unearths something with a sound of triumph. “Hag, look at what I found for you when I was last in Oxenfurt.” He throws her a book and she catches it with a hand. She looks at the cover and realizes it’s an old treatise on body transformation. The book is very old, the edges of the paper catch easily on her skin. “Don’t ask how I got it, state secret and all that,” he winks at her.
Yennefer should make a comment. Wants to say something sharp and beautiful but she touches the cover, runs a hand over the cover. And.
She doesn’t remember. She doesn’t remember the last time someone gave her something that wasn’t transactional in the end.
Her eyes go up, and he’s already moved on from it, is oiling his lute. She remembers a remnant of thought.
This one should be mine.
Yennefer doesn’t wish.
She rages. Blood is throbbing through her chest, how dare he, how dare he do this to her, she will never forgive him, she will never open her heart again. Her fist spasms. She can feel the blood drip from the wounds in her palm. A stained hand scraped through her hair and a shriek roots itself in her fury, in her grief. Yennefer clenches her whole body and locks her muscles, opening her mouth for a voiceless howl.
A moment and a century passes. Her heart slows, she breathes calm. The rage simmers. Yennefer is going to walk away from all of this, fuck him. Fuck Geralt and fuck his horse.
And then Jaskier stumbles through the clearing, and his face is so pale, Yennefer finds her heart skipping.
“Yennefer?” He whispers, and he wobbles. His lute is strapped to his back and he has nothing. No pack, no food, no water.
“Jaskier, what the fuck.” She conjures a water skin and shoves it into his hands. “Drink.”
He stares blankly at the water and his hands move without his approval. He drinks the water, slow at first and then in great gulps until the water is spilling out the side. Jaskier finishes the last drops with a great gasp.
And then he’s crying, There’s nothing beautiful about it, his face is swollen with grief, and she doesn’t understand, he wasn’t near the battle, he had nothing to do with any of the deaths, why the fuck is he crying like half of his body has been cut off? Yennefer’s heartstrings are still raw to the touch and she’d kill anyone who would ask after her health, but she claws a hand into Jaskier’s chest. “Tell me.”
He shakes his head, and there’s a crack in his eyes.
“Tell me.”
Again, he shakes his head, and then he takes her hand and presses it to the silver star on his chest. It’s more intimate than anything he’s ever done with her and she feels her heart leap like a lark. Jaskier presses his forehead to hers and whispers, “I… heard your fight.”
She freezes, feels claws in her chest. “Don’t let that stop you.” He closes his eyes. “Only you can choose what kind of mother you are. No one else can.”
Yennefer’s hand spasms against his chest. She curls around a hand around her mark on his chest, and then straightens. “I need to leave this goddamn mountain. I,” she doesn’t hesitate, she doesn’t. “I’ll take you where you need to go. Anywhere, I’ve been, I can portal you.”
Jaskier is quiet and too still; she’s never seen him so still before. He’s looking around as if he’s seeing the world burn down around him. “You know,” he smiles, “I think it’s time for me to go back to Oxenfurt. I think I stayed away too long this time.”
A nod, a hand motion, and Jaskier looking back toward the mountaintop with a strange mixture of resignation, fury, and grief. She does not know what happened and a part of her does not care. “Leave it, leave it behind. The next steps you take are the new steps of your new life.” She doesn’t imagine the glass in her throat.
He scrubs his face, hard. “The ever changing life of a bard. Even after twenty years.” He turns and steps through the portal without a second look and disappears. She looks up at the mountaintop and wonders, for a moment, if someone could have seen them talking. Yennefer’s heart hardens and she spits out, “burn, butcher, burn.”
She steps through, and is in an alleyway in bustling Oxenfurt. Jaskier is gazing at the crowds that pass by. “Like I said, your magic is always so magical.” He crouches for a moment and hides his face, and for a moment, Yennefer is afraid he'll begin crying again. But he stands, straightening vertebrae by vertebrae. He murmurs, half to himself, “New steps, Jaskier.” He turns back to Yennefer and tries to smile. “Thank you for saving me a long trip, witch. I can’t imagine sliding down that mountain on boots such as mine.”
Yennefer snorts. “You’d be dead, bard, and those boots would be scraped to the sole.”
“Which wouldn’t matter if I was dead.”
This one should be mine.
She shakes her head. “I’m leaving Jaskier; like you said, it’s been a long time. It’s time I speak to old friends again.” Jaskier looks at her, and she sees that his eyes have begun to water, but for a different reason.
“Will you come visit?”
She doesn’t say anything, but jerks her head once. He grins. “Oh, good. I’d hate to think of you drinking shit wine on your own.”
“I never drink shit wine,” she laughs. And isn’t that a surprise? The two of them smiling here as a Witcher glares at his destiny on top of a mountain still. “See you around,” and ignores his flinch, “Jaskier. And Bard.” He catches the xenovox that she throws at him. “If you need help, call me. I will come if I can.”
Yennefer dies on Sodden Hill.
Yennefer is reborn without fire and chaos, and she lives.
Once upon a time, an ugly little girl lived with the pigs and mud. She only knows derision and disgust. She falls in love with the first person to show her kindness, and when it falls apart, hisses that she won’;t ever ever let that happen again.
A djinn happens, a witcher and his bard, and then a princess.
And Yennefer falls in love.
It’s by chance that Yennefer walks past the foot of the tower when she does. She hears the faint twang of a lute, the chords like lost ghosts. She pauses, her fur cloak edged in frost and chill from the snow. She’s avoiding the training yard, and the tower is right above. But aside from meals, she knows she hasn’t seen Jaskier, and she now wonders what he occupies his time with when he’s not a silent specter at the table.
She climbs the steps and finds Jaskier singing softly to the air.
Yennefer wants to stare, because the wind is kicking up ice crystals into the air and Jaskier looks almost Fae in the glittering sunlight. But Yennefer isn’t soft, and she isn’t romantic, so she snaps her fingers and a snowball drops from the sky onto his head.
Jaskier squawks and sputters in his seat, and would possibly fall off the side of the wall if her next spell doesn’t tether him very firmly by waist to his little stone throne. “Yennefer! Put a bell on yourself or something, a poor man has to have warning before he encounters a witch at night!”
Yennefer glances up at the bright blue sky and the sun. “Alas, it seems that we’re all out of the moon. Are you sure all the Toussaint wine hasn’t wiped your head, Jaskier?”
He strums the lute. There’s an air of amusement, of melancholy. “I wish. What I wouldn’t do for a bottle of last year’s vintage beaujolais.” Jaskier begins a soft tune beneath the plucked notes. “What brings you to my part of the tower, darling witch?”
“I heard you playing and wondered if a wraith had sneaked in.” She arches an eyebrow.
Jaskier rolls his eyes with a huff, “please, my dear lady, there’s no audience here for either of us.”
What a point. She gathers her cloak around her and settles back against one of the stone ledges, opposite where Jaskier sprawls. The lute continues to sing to the winter sun.. He wears a thick doublet, thicker pants, but little else. She finds herself surprised to see him without gloves; the fading scars on his hand are still red and dull with recovering flesh. “The cold cannot be good for your hands.” She raises a fist and a pair of fur-lined gloves gracefully fall from thin air. He grins. “And stop grinning like a lunatic.”
“Aw, you love me, my dear lady” he chuckles. He pulls the beautiful, thin gloves on and begins a meaningless, soft thrum on the lute strings. “Thank you, love.”
She conjures up a cup of hot mulled wine for both of them; he huffs with delight and sips the wine like it’s an elixir. They settle into the bones of the castle and watch the busy grounds below.
“Sometimes, I can’t get over how magical your magic is.”
Yennefer laughs. “You’re so easily impressed.”
A snort. “When you’re but a lovely, renowned, and yet very-human bard, all the magic and demons and monsters will still be a shock, even twenty years down the line.” Jaskier looks over the wall, where the Witchers train and Ciri runs through her own exercises. “Witchers and witches, princesses and destiny, it’s like something out of a songbook.”
“Destiny’s a cantankerous bitch and it has a strange way of pulling threads to the direction she wants.” Yennefer’s eyes follow Ciri. “Do you know, that once upon a time, I would have done anything for a child, for a babe that I could call my own?”
The twang of the lute goes silent and Yennefer doesn’t need to look over to know that Jaskier is looking at her. “I spent years at court, dealing with the childish machinations of those who thought they owned the sorcerers and mages of Ban Ard and Aretuza both, and could use us in all the wars and all their petty squabbles for power and riches. And then I watched a woman throw her child away because she was afraid for her life and yet still wanted to remain on the top of that pile. I always thought I’d die before I’d ever put my greed, my wants before my child.” Yennefer smiles and knows it’s like a bitter gash across her face. “And in the end, I was no different from a queen who wanted to live.” She spits the last word out like a curse.
The clang of metal below is ongoing, and Yennefer recognizes the words as something that sounds like the spidery voice of voleth mere.
“Do you know, I had no siblings until I was about sixteen?” Jaskier says, after a silence. He doesn’t look at her and instead, stares over the railing at Ciri’s little figure. “My father very much wanted me to be a certain way. I tried, I really did. I took all the riding lessons, studied fencing, and excelled with my tutors. But it wasn’t enough. I was never enough for them. They realized, at some point, I wouldn’t be their ideal future Viscount. My father sired two additional children and my mother took them from some poor lady-in-waiting who was forced away. My siblings never knew, because of course, my mother doted on them like pets. I told them I would go to Oxenfurt and my father’s steward opened a line of credit for me, and my parents forgot about me the day I walked out the door.”
Yennefer finds herself holding a breath.
“Remember what I said, Yennefer?” Blue eyes turn to her and they pierce straight through. “Nothing says you have to be one kind of mother or another. Only you can make that choice.”
Ciri presses herself to Yennefer’s side, a quiet warmth. Yennefer holds her close, hand gently running through their bright blonde hair. There are hours where Yennefer allows herself these small aching wishes that Ciri might forever remain with her, safe and tucked away.
She leans over and whispers, “I love you, dear girl.”
Maybe it’s too soon, but it doesn’t matter, because Ciri tucks her blonde head closer to Yennefer’s heart and murmurs love back.
Jaskier has forgiven Geralt, and she’s fine (she is) with it. The two of them have been spiraling toward each other for years, decades, and she already knows she doesn’t need them, she has Ciri. Ciri is her whole world.
Ciri shakes her head at her. “I don’t think it’s that way, momma.” Her baby girl watches the two men walking in the courtyard. “I think they finally just know what they want from each other.
She doesn’t know what sets it off. But she tastes the sharp bite of pain in the air and turns just in time to see Jaskier hide a grimace so quickly, she might have thought she imagined it except she watches one burned hand spasm beneath the table.
Geralt mutters angrily at his brother and Lambert sneers. There’s a bottomless pit of anger burning beneath the surface of the red-headed Witcher and Yennefer needs to be calm, needs to be patient for Ciri’s sake, as she adores her new uncle.
And no. Yennefer does what she wants and she knows Jaskier has spent his whole life not being enough. She won’t let that happen here, where his wounds still bleed fresh.
She slams her fist on the table and a burst of electrical charge crackles through the stone. A snarl tears itself from her chest and several of the Witchers half-stand from their seats, muscles tight with tension. What’s on her face, she can’t say, but the black yawning chasm of fury and shrieking rage that she tenderly stokes is an answer to it all.
“Jaskier.” The name is hissed and he jerks up. “Come to my side.” She doesn’t take her eyes off Lambert, whose eyes were narrowed in some pitiful state of anger. Who the fuck did he think he was? She wills the red to rise higher in her and the two of them are like hissing animals, circling around Jaskier like a treasure. She’s ready, she’ll go to violence if she must.
And a hand slips into hers and the calluses are familiar and kind. “Yen,” Jaskier says quietly. He squeezes her palm. “Please. Not for me.”
She swallows the half-formed spell in her head. Ciri’s hand is on her arm as well and it’s steady and sure. Lambert’s face darkens, but he turns away with a scoff and storms out the hall, with Coen murmuring an apology at Jaskier before following him. The other Witchers slowly sit and Lambert's departure pops the bubble of tension. Vesemir grunts at the group and they resume eating.
Jaskier tugs at her hand slowly and they go out the doors, with Geralt gazing after the two of them with an unreadable look in his eyes. But he stays. He stays behind with Ciri.
They walk back toward the towers and find themselves at the top yet again, overlooking the snowy valley. Jaskier rubs his fingers together and chuckles. “You’re normally only that tetchy with me or Geralt, what’s gotten into you?”
“He deserved it.” Yennefer glares down. Is Jaskier going to take offense that she jumped in for him? “You’re a part of us, and he has no right to belittle you.” She half mutters. “That’s my job.”
Jaskier shrugs, light. “Ah. Well. He didn’t say anything I haven’t thought before, or Geralt’s said more directly to me.”
A blessing.
“The world is waiting for us,” Yennefer says, a tight fire in her throat. Jaskier is gazing into a future only he sees and it’s as if he already knows the ending. “Destiny draws tighter and we’re all caught in its web.” And Yennefer wishes, she wishes that softness exists within her, wishes that love is easy, “I do not wish it to be different, for destiny has brought Ciri to me, has drawn Geralt and I both to be her protectors.”
She feels Jaskier’s arms spasm in her hand, and he trembles and begins to draw away.
“No. No. Listen and look at me.” She waits, Yennefer waits. She’s refused to wait all her life, but she will always wait for Jaskier. Yennefer knows this to be true, knows it to the marrow of her bones.
She presses her hand to the silver mark on his chest, the one she forced upon him so many years ago. “I chose you.I choose you. So don’t you fucking dare think that you don’t matter just because of destiny or some horseshit. Jaskier, look at me.”
Finally, he turns his eyes to her, the blue like a clearing storm after lightning, the beginning of where the ocean meets the land. “You’re mine. I don’t care how many years it’ll take me, but someday, you’ll understand that you’re mine and what that means. I’m a selfish witch and you’re never going to escape me. You can run and run, and I’ll always hunt you down and drag you back and you’ll always be mine again.”
The dark is crawling over her chest, she can feel it smash every light in its path, she’s too much, she’ll never be enough, she’ll always be that pig in the mud and dirt and then Jaskier grabs her hands and looks at her. He finally looks at her.
And the tentative smile that breaks across his face is like the flutter of a sun, the crackle of a portal before it opens new worlds to her. This is love, Yennefer thinks, this is what love is to her, perhaps.
“Witch, darling, you’d never have to chase me down again. I’m already here.” And he presses his face into her throat, and she can feel the hot splash of tears.
And somehow, Yennefer knows they’re tears of joy.
A long time ago, Yennefer made the choice to discard the soft things in her heart. She tells herself that love is something to be used, hears with the strum of her blood and the beat behind her throat. She didn’t care for things that die, that change, that won’t love her back. She meets Geralt and the thought crosses her mind, once, twice, unstoppable moments in which she briefly thinks perhaps my mind has changed, but it turns out a Djinn threads itself through the whole affair and now.
Now.
Yennefer knows, now, that all that love she holds back, all the care she wants to give, Ciri will take it all and give it twice fold back. She’ll tear the world apart to protect Ciri. And, somehow, that translates into forgiveness for Geralt. She finds that she will care, and that she can care deeply. That it need not be an endless sally of anger and grief.
The two of them aren’t built for softness. No, she amends. They’re not built for loving and being loved. It took a bright little girl, destiny run amok, and a maybe-magical bard to show them both that it need not be always transactional or even complicated. Ciri loves them, and they would change destiny for her.
These days, she sees Geralt’s love for Ciri and does not rage. She sees his care for Jaskier and does not scoff.
And when Jaskier turns in her bed and murmurs unease or comfort, Yennefer presses herself into him, presses his head to hers, and speaks a thought into existence, this one is mine.