Chapter Text
“She told the little prince ‘Once I explore the world, I will come back for you, and we will leave this castle forever.’ Why didn’t you come back for me, Yen?”
Her baby brother stares up at her with his blue, blue eyes. Those eyes haven’t changed. He’s still under her hands, trusting. How is he so trusting when Yen has splintered him into so many pieces, so many times?
Julianjulianjulianjulian. The boy of music and motion that she never saw grow up. Yen is unmoored, lost at sea, but for the first time in a long time, she can see a light on the shore.
~
Yennefer remembered vividly the night Julian was born. She had three younger siblings already, but she didn’t much remember their births. The youngest was still pink and small and fragile and screamed every time she saw Yen. Yen was seven now and slept in the barn, and the night Jaskier was born, her mother’s screaming kept her awake. Yen was tired and cold and lonely.
She crept to the door in time for her youngest brother’s first cry. And cry he did, loud and unceasing, demanding to be heard. Her mother was sweaty and bloody and pained, and for a moment Yen felt a kinship with her. She was always in pain. Her mother held her youngest brother, and above all looked relieved. Yen didn’t understand it then, and she wouldn’t for another sixty years.
She leaned closer to the door. “Julian,” her mother said, to the little body in her arms. “Your name is Julian.”
Julian. Another person to hate her.
~
When Yennefer was almost eleven, a small hand slid a bouquet of flowers under the barn door and Julian said that he loved her. She was not lovable, she knew this, but she could not shake off the sweet little boy of music and motion. He came back day after day and didn’t scream when he saw her.
“Can I put flowers in your hair, Yen? You’ll look so pretty!” He was so small and so fearless, little Julian. He touched her without hesitation and never left her alone if he could help it.
“Yes,” she said, and he pressed a wet kiss to her cheek. Dandelions hung by her face and tickled her neck and she left them there until they fell out.
“I love you, Yen! Good night!”
Careful, so careful, she brushed the dark hair from his forehead. Yen was not that much bigger than him, not really, but her hand dwarfed his forehead. He had never flinched at her purple eyes or her crooked spine, only smiled and clung to her like a limpet. Her little brother. Hers. She would die for him gladly. He was the only thing that made this horrid life worth living.
“I- I love you too, little dandelion. Sleep well.”
~
Yen told him stories, real-life hidden in fairytales, her pain nothing to the power of a princess set free. Julian loved her stories, loved all stories, she suspected. He would lay his head in her lap, eyes so blue, so trusting and fall asleep to the sound of her voice. Sometimes she would wake him, send him to sleep inside next to their mother who pretended she didn’t notice him missing. Some nights, he slept so deeply and so peacefully that she wouldn’t dare disturb him.
He was not that heavy, even with the stiffness of Yen’s movements. She scooped him up and passed him off to their mother at the door of the house.
Yen didn’t care for her mother, not since she had let Yen sleep out in the cold. She was afraid and tired, but she hadn’t protected the child that she brought into the world. Yen hated her for it, just a bit, more with each year. She imagined growing up and running, taking little Julian with her. Someday.
For now, she passed the warm little body to her mother’s wary arms. Tonight, she spoke, quiet so that he wouldn’t hear.
“He’s the one good thing you ever gave me,” Yen said.
Her mother said nothing back. She never did.
~
Yen told him stories, but for her, Julian sang.
He’d never been quiet a day in his life, since that first cry. He sang in the morning, in the afternoon, after the moon had risen. Julian danced and rarely closed his mouth for long. His voice was almost otherworldly, with the sweet naivety of childhood. At first, Yen had wanted peace, but now she was on edge without his voice rising and falling somewhere on their farm.
A faint memory hung about her, of their mother singing Yen to sleep when she was very small. She could never hold onto it long enough to know if it was real. Julian sang her to sleep instead.
Lullay lullow, lullay lully,
Beway bewy, lullay lullow,
Lullay lully,
Baw me bairne, sleep softly now.
I saw a sweet and seemly sight,
A blissful bird, a blossom bright,
That morning made and mirth among.
There was something magical about his voice and the way everyone stopped and listened.
“Someday, I’ll be the most famous singer on the whole continent,” Julian told her, with the surety only a child of six could manage. “Everyone will know my name.”
“Sure, little dandelion,” Yen said, dropping a kiss to his brow.
Somedays, Yen almost believed him.
~
Four marks. That’s what she was worth.
Julian was out in the fields when they took her. She holds onto the memory of him fast asleep in her arms the night before as she punches in the mirror. Yen regrets—that she’ll never come back for him, that he’ll never know what happened to her—but for the first time in her memory, she is living (ending) her life for herself.
~
Yennefer of Vengerburg, graduate of Aretuza, who channeled lightning in her veins and held the ear of kings, went back for her baby brother. She was late, eight years late, but he would forgive her, she was sure. Her training took time, as did establishing herself in her new Court, but now she had a place and a roof over her head and somewhere worthy of her Julian, her little brother of music and motion.
She had not grown more like him, but she was not simply pain any longer. Yennefer was a creature of power now, of pain and power. She could only hope that Julian would still love her, even though she was no longer the girl he had known.
Yennefer returned to Vengerburg on a sunny day in spring. The fields were smaller than she remembered, drearier. Even the air was sad.
The closer she walked to the hovel where she was raised, the more unnerved she became. The man she had once called her father was in with the pigs and for a brief moment, Yen felt small and twisted and weak. No. No. She would never feel like that again, she wouldn’t, she was power now and nothing else.
She stood on that odious man’s back and pressed his face into the manure. It hit her then, that the world was quiet, so quiet, not another sound but his heaving, shaking breaths. Why was it so quiet?
“Hello, Edvard,” Yennefer said. Her voice was colder than she had intended originally, to cover the fear creeping up her throat. (No, she didn’t fear things now. She was power. What was happening to her?) “Have you missed me all this time?” She kicked him onto his back, so that he could see his death coming.
It must’ve been her eyes, she wagered, that let him know her. There was fear there on his face, and it was so satisfying to see. She’d dreamt of it, held it close to her heart for years. The disgust and hatred in the corners of his mouth were familiar as ever. “You.”
“Yes, me. I’ve come for Julian. I intend to kill you whether you tell me his whereabouts or not, but I’ll consider making it quick if you hurry this along.” She wouldn’t, she planned on making him suffer.
His eyes widened for a moment, taken off guard, before he laughed. The fear in Yen’s throat crept higher. “Oh, here for that unnatural bastard of a creature are you? You’re too late.”
Yen rested her heel on his throat. “Too late for what?”
“The boy’s dead,” he spat. “Died of a fever two years back or so. Crying out for his monster of a sister.”
The rage was so intense, so blinding, that Yennefer didn’t realize what she’d done until her fist clenched and the man began to drown in his own blood. It took a long time.
When the anger subsided, the fear grew and grew until Yen looked down and saw her hands shaking. She should’ve waited to kill him, because the spiteful old man would lie in a heartbeat. Everything was so quiet. Julian was never quiet.
In the doorway of the shack, where she had once passed her sleeping brother to their mother, was a woman. Yen hardly recognized her, gray and sad. “Is it true?” Yen heard herself ask, lips numb. “Is Julian gone?” The woman who was supposed to be her mother, who had failed her time and time again, who had only ever given her one good thing, nodded.
“He’s been gone two years now,” she said. Yen felt something inside her die. She threw her small dagger with supernatural accuracy, burying it in her mother’s left eye.
Yen opened a portal to somewhere, to anywhere, and screamed.
~
Yennefer of Vengerburg was one of the most powerful mages on the continent. She held the ear of kings, weaved destiny around herself like armor, and was above all a creature of pain and power, power and pain. She did not like music much.
She had been known, on occasion, to burn too loud bards to a crisp.
~
That night, after Ciri stops laughing and Yen manages to release the grip she has on Jask- Jul- Jaskier’s wrist, they camp in the woods.
What with the shouting and the tackling, they drew too much attention earlier in the night to stay in the inn. Which Jaskier complains about. Loudly.
“Not, of course, that I don’t appreciate a good flair for the dramatic,” her smart-ass little brother says. He winks at Ciri when she giggles. “In fact, I might go as far as to say that I invented the dramatic, if my heroic rescue of you all with my lute is any indication. However, dearest sister mine,” The thrill Yen feels is undeniable. Sister. She’s still a sister. “I was quite looking forward to a hot bath, and a bed big enough for two, if you can gather my meaning.”
Yesterday, Yen might have rolled her eyes and tripped him off the path with a gust of wind. Today, she knows the truth, that her baby brother lives, and she would never do something to endanger him like that.
But she won’t deprive herself of their banter. That would be unnatural and Jaskier certainly wouldn’t thank her for it. “I’m sorry, little brother, were you under the impression I would allow you to be unsupervised with your paramour? In the absence of parents, isn’t it an older sibling’s duty to arrange all romantic ventures?” Yen taps a sharp nail against her lip. “I’m not sure I approve of your choice, in any case.”
Jaskier sputters with outrage. Ciri’s giggle turns to a full-on laugh.
Geralt doesn’t look at her, but from the new tension in his shoulders, she knows that he heard her underlying message. Good.
That night, Yen conjures a tent when they stop to camp, one wonderfully larger on the inside and pleasantly warm. She sees Geralt flinch as he enters, and she knows that he recognizes it from the mountain. Good. Jaskier is oblivious, chattering away to Ciri and stowing his and Geralt’s things by one of the larger beds. There’s fresh food in the tent’s stores, heavy with preservation charms, and they eat like kings. Yen doesn’t usually spend the night with the trio, she comes and goes as she pleases. Sleeping on the dirt, after all, is not a part of her life she cares to relive. No one questions her spending the night, this time. She can’t imagine letting Jaskier get more than a half-mile away.
After dinner, when Ciri’s head starts to droop, Jaskier reaches for his lute. “Now, what say you to a lullaby, Princess? Not too old for those, I hope.”
Ciri shakes her head.
“Perfect,” Jaskier says, and waits for Ciri to change into her nightclothes. Yen watches him as he sits on the edge of the girl’s bed and strums a few quiet notes.
“Lullay lullow, lullay lully,
Beway bewy, lullay lullow,
Lullay lully,
Baw me bairne, sleep softly now.
“I saw a sweet and seemly sight,
A blissful bird, a blossom bright,
That morning made and mirth among.”
Yen, oddly enough, feels the urge to cry.
When Ciri finally drops off, Jaskier joins them by the fire. He slumps against Geralt’s side, until the Witcher accommodates him with a sigh, opening his arms and curling her little brother into his chest. Jaskier hums, happy as she’s ever seen him, and toes off his boots. His feet make their way into her lap.
Yen wants to protest, shove his smelly feet far away from her, but. But. The weight is a warm reminder that he’s here, that he’s alive. She leaves them.
“This is nice,” Jaskier says. His toes wiggle in her lap. “Some nice family cuddle time. Yesterday you would’ve taken my feet at the ankles for this, you know.”
Yen rolls her eyes. “Shut up, brat.”
He falls asleep like that because of course he does. For all his whining about a bed, apparently all he needed was a warm body to lean against. When the crick in Jaskier’s neck begins to look painful even to Yen, Geralt shifts him around until he’s sitting in the Witcher’s lap, head tucked into his neck. Yen tries not to mourn the loss of his feet.
She watches Geralt, the softening of his expression when Jaskier snuffles into his neck, the gentle way he tucks Jaskier’s wayward arm into his chest. It almost hurts to look at him, at them. Has she really kept this from her brother for so many years?
When the small fire in the brazier burns down, Geralt stands. He cradles her little brother, one arm under his knees and the other holding him close. Yen watches, as Geralt tucks Jaskier into bed, carefully pulling the blankets up to his chin. He doesn’t climb in after him.
“We need to talk,” Yen says.
Geralt grunts.
“Outside. Now,” she says, and slips through the flap of the tent as quickly as she can, to keep the warmth inside. It’s late spring, but the nights are still cold.
Geralt follows her, as she leads him a suitable distance from the camp. “Going to punch me in the face too?”
Yen stops, her back to him. She stares off into the trees, the dark shadows they cast. “I considered it. I came to the conclusion that it would be rather hypocritical, after all that I’ve done to him.” When she finally turns, she has a small blade in her hand.
Geralt doesn’t step away from her, lets her hold the dagger to his throat. His hair glows in the moonlight, clean as she ever remembers seeing it. Jaskier’s influence, of course. His eyes, golden and fierce and strange, are not frightened. Yen remembers the pull between them, remembers thinking it was love. No, she knows better now. Love is softer than what she had felt for him, fiercer, too. The strange pull she felt, still feels to some degree, has nothing on the way Jaskier watches Geralt when the Witcher isn’t looking. Has nothing on the soft kisses she has unwittingly interrupted. Has nothing on the way Geralt tucks Jaskier into bed and pulls the blanket to his chin.
Yen looks into his eyes and knows she has never loved, never been loved the way that Jaskier loves Geralt, that Geralt loves Jaskier. It’s surprisingly easy to make her peace with that.
“Going to kill me, Yen?” Geralt asks. He still looks unafraid.
She draws her focus inward, stops thinking of herself and her heart and-
“No,” she says, and lightly drags the point of her blade against his jugular. Everything is still. “Just threaten, I suppose.”
Geralt hums. The vibration travels up the blade to her hand. She doesn’t take her eyes off of him.
“If you ever, and I mean ever, hurt him again like you did on that mountain, I will end you, Geralt of Rivia. If you allow him to be hurt, I will end you. If you ever do anything he doesn’t want, I will end you. Do you understand?”
Geralt meets her eyes, gold to violet, and she can see just a hint of his canines in his smile. “Yes. I understand.”
“Good,” she says, and tucks the dagger up her sleeve.
~