Chapter Text
It happened, though they wouldn’t recognize the significance for many years, the night Cirilla was born. That dark and starry evening, most were to be found out jumping the fires of Belleteyn or already sleeping off too much ale. It was a night for the sort of revelry that you wouldn’t remember in the morning.
It would become, however, a night that demanded remembering.
On that night, high in a tower in the castle of Cintra, Pavetta was in her chambers clenching the hand of her mother while Duny paced next door with the men. The birth was a hard one. Pavetta, never of the halest nature, passed hours with her straining. Duny had been assured that this was normal, but hearing from behind the oak door at first the ever-increasing volume of groans, and then, perhaps more frightening, the weakening of them over the last half hour, his steps had hastened.
He’d reached the wall again. Then, with a sharp pivot, the fifteen paces to the opposite. Turned again. He ran his hand through his already much-mussed hair and stared at Mousesack stood perfectly still by the window with a neutral mien.
"Shouldn’t we have h—"
The door opened.
Calanthe stepped out, robed in a rich red velvet; ever the queen despite the late hour. Duny felt the normal clench of anxiety and hostility she evoked in him flare mutedly beneath the more dominant worry over his wife. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was smiling down at her arms, sleeves obscuring what must be — please, let it be —
"I would like to introduce the new lion cub of Cintra," (she raised her head, and he was shocked to find a rare glint of approval there) "Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon." Her arms extended: "Your daughter."
A daughter. His heart melted as he reached for her.
And though the babe had been quiet thus far, (a fact the nursemaid would later whisper about as a first sign of strangeness) she now seemed to find her breath, for leaving the warmth of her grandmother’s arms, she erupted in a first warbling cry.
In that very instant, three things occurred.
Firstly, every monolith trembled as if the very heavens were calling them to rise, fine cracks webbing from within as they strained towards a celestial event invisible to the naked eye.
Secondly, the Rectoress of Aretuza sat straight up in bed with a cry, overwhelmed at a shrieking magical awareness tripping like shattered glass through her veins. Was this someone’s conduit moment? It was unlike anything she’d ever sensed and left her panting in confusion.
And thirdly, simultaneously across the whole of the Continent, every sentient being past the age of maturity was indelibly marked with the calligraphy of a name.
On the night Cirilla of Cintra was born, everything changed.
"Do you know who yours is yet?"
The blue-smocked girls were lingering under an awning.
"No, but," the taller girl tittered, "I think it’s kind of romantic. That any moment he could appear, you know?"
Her friend grabbed at her wrist, studying the newly inked penmanship. "Do you think he’s handsome? Or rich? By his name I mean? Because Sarai said hers had four whole names so he must be practically royal and mine only has the one so I should resign myself to being a village hedgewitch somewhere, which rude, but what if she’s right and —"
"Are you injured?"
The girls burst to attention, panic flooding their eyes as they saw who stood before them.
"Um. N-" a stuttering breath from the first, "No, ma’am."
Tissaia inspected a cuticle. Then their faces. "Archmistress. Sick then?"
They looked at each other, the same girl left answering, the latter seemingly choking on her own spittle. "No, Archmistress."
The perfectly coiffed head tipped in a cool appraisal so blank that the two almost wished for ire over this ice. The smaller one shivered.
"It’s as I thought then."
They glanced at each other again, brows furrowed.
"Well?" She looked at them expectantly. "It leaves only one option, as I see it."
Gods, it was suddenly chilly, wasn’t it? They waited, frozen.
Tissaia clasped her hands at her waist, a static ease to the pose that made the smaller girl feel more like she was facing a coiled snake than a woman.
"See, it’s either stupidity, or it’s rebellion. To be out here when I know you are supposed to be in class at the greenhouse at this very moment. And it’s not rebellion, certainly."
They both shrank where they stood, smaller by inches in fear. "No, Archmistress."
"Of course not, because neither of you possess either the wits or the will to so clearly defy my position as Rectoress of this school and in such a disappointingly useless manner as to" (their eyes grew larger by the moment) "gossip about such banalities as men when you could be studying to be sorceresses."
"No, no of course not, Archmistress."
She returned to inspecting her cuticles.
"So you agree then?"
The same confusion in their eyes.
Tissaia’s lips twisted in a wicked smile. "That it is stupidity."
The sorceress inwardly thrilled at the brief offense flaring in the taller’s eye ("Yes, good, have a little bit of spine") before it cowed into the appropriate penitence. "Yes. Stupidity, definitely that."
The smaller nodded along fiercely.
"Well," she drawled, "I have rarely seen any cured of such an affliction. …But do endeavor to prove me wrong, won’t you?"
They both ardently continued their nodding, already sidling along the wall to escape.
"Yes, yes ma’am. I mean, certainly, Archmistress."
They inched further, then hesitated. Looked at her pleadingly.
She stared.
"…GO, then."
And with a tripping of heels, and flashes of blue they fled.
Sauntering from the nearby corner, Margarita Laux-Antille chortled.
"Oh, you had far too much fun with that."
Tissaia’s lips shifted enough that one could almost call it a grin before a staff member passed and she reversed into a dower purse of the lips. She had a reputation to uphold after all.
"One must make their own moments of joy in this world, I find."
Margarita laughed again, taking her friend’s arm as they walked towards her office. "I’m pleased to hear you say that, actually."
"Oh, here we go again—"
"Because I thought you to be someone completely opposed to joy."
Tissaia shut the door behind them, eyes rolling as the buxom woman reclined on the couch in a languid display (surely her chest did not need to be so highly accented in that dress?) and continued a conversation they’d been in for months.
"Outright rejecting, in fact, of all opportunity for happiness in her life."
She sighed. "Rita —"
"Don’t 'Rita' me." It was still said in jest, but a worried twist of the mouth lessened the humor. Her voice turned tender. "Honestly, Tiss, I love you. And I just want you to receive all the world has for you."
"It’s as I said to the girls. There are so many other more important things one could think about than lovers — the nature of chaos, the boundaries of nations, … the importance of good tailors" she smirked as she eyed her friend’s straining bust-line.
Rita just arched her back against a decorative pillow, the better to present herself, and raised an eyebrow. "Oh, hush. That may work on children but you and I have lived long enough to know you can have both."
Tissaia sank into her desk chair with a huff. Thumbed her pipe absently; tracing the smooth briar curve of it, earned over years of de-stressing from hordes of hormonal girls with untrained chaos on top of their already emotional antics.
Margarita did know her too well. A year ago, this was all still new and uncertain enough that she could get away with a play at loftier goals. But after centuries, she knew Rita could see beneath any airs.
"…They’re saying it was a sort of aftershock if you will. Of the Conjunction."
A hum from the couch. "Like after an earthquake?"
"Yes, but one so large that the remnants ripple across our Spheres across the space of centuries, millennia even." It was a fascinating conclusion if not one that squirmed beneath your dermis and made you realize how powerless you really were over your small life.
"Well…" another hum, this one lilting at the end, "this is better than monsters, I’ll tell you that."
Tissaia barked out a laugh, glancing up to find her friend’s eyes still (too) tenderly observing her. Glanced down again. "We can’t know for sure what it means. We can’t know that it means —" she swallowed. Fiddled with a quill. Then realized she was fiddling and huffed, clasping her hands in front of her instead.
Margarita frowned softly. "Tiss… the data points that way, you have to admit."
The last three years had been tumultuous, to say the least. After the names appeared, there was a panic as people tried to figure out what they meant. Were they a lover? An enemy? Just someone you needed to talk to tomorrow about the groceries? Why did everyone have them in different locations? Did that bear a different meaning? Would the names shift day to day or were they permanent? What if that person had died already? What if you didn’t know them, what then? What if, what if, what if.
It did seem that a large number of married couples had each other’s names. Not a majority, certainly, but in a far larger percentage than any other category studied.
By the time a few months had passed and the rumors of it being a love match had grown, chaos truly began to reign. Couples divorced, or spouses were abandoned at the lack of one name or the presence of another’s. Messy fights broke out in almost every town over scorned lovers, or new family feuds. Children were pulled between parents, and teenagers eloped, and widowers cried, and academics posited, and bards gossiped, and the whole damn Continent lost their collective minds.
A task force was selected among the Brotherhood to study the phenomenon to reach a decisive conclusion regarding its meaning. They were the ones who had theorized the Conjunction ripple. It was impossible to prove, but it made sense. In some other world, this must just be their normal, and like two shields colliding on the field of battle, it was not uncommon for flecks of paint to transfer. Who knows what they offered some other plane in return.
But at the end of the day, it was all still that — theory. Yes, those who chose to believe the names meant love seemed to find it coming true with regularity. There was a small contingent of skeptics who chose to ignore the names, or remove them in a cry for agency over their lives, or to honor their hermetic vows. But more and more, people were choosing to pursue the individual instead.
Boards had been set up in taverns across every region to help people with unknown names find each other. Pleas to inform anyone who knew someone with such and such name to find their pair in such and such village. Traders and travelers were then tasked with carrying copies of such lists to whatever places they should find themselves in next. There was a sudden demand for Matchfinders and a new profession was born.
And amid the chaos, Tissaia had sat like a stone in a river.
Margarita sighed. "Will you at least tell me who it is? Please, Tissaia. We’ll figure it out. If they’re gone, if they’re a stranger, if they’re known. It doesn’t matter, we can figure it out. And" she stood up and came around the desk, taking Tissaia’s hands in her own, "let me assure you, if there is any doubt in that brilliant mind of yours, you are worthy of them." She laughed. "If anything, I’ll probably believe them unworthy of you."
The Rectoress tried to pull her hands away but her friend held them fast, bending to her knees as she met the haughty eyes of authority piercing down at her. "That scary look may work on the girls, but I’m immune by now, babe. Look, I know you. And you are in such a league of your own on so many levels that sometimes, I think you’re the only one left to play your own worst enemy."
Tissaia’s ice-stare broke with a snort.
Margarita humored her with a chuckle but pressed on inexorably. "You have always been intensely private, and I respect that, I do, but private and walled off are not the same thing. I don’t know if you’re ashamed, or embarrassed, or scared, or dislike them, or whatever options there are in this new reality but it’s been over two years by now. They really think this is it. That it’s a shot at love. Real love. And you deserve that."
Tissaia huffed.
"No, you do. Or if you don’t, you better prove it to me."
Tissaia sighed, lowering her forehead to their joined hands.
"Please, Tiss."
For a moment she just breathed. Then she knocked her brow against Rita’s knuckles lightly once. Twice.
Margarita’s thumb smoothed her own, and Tissaia finally made eye contact again with a sigh.
"It’s… complicated." She swallowed. "She’s — She —"
The door swung into the wall with a cacophonous bang to reveal Triss Merigold.
"Um." She glanced at the offending door which was silently swinging back to her. "Wow. Pringrape oil? Those hinges were much better lubricated than I expected. Like, way better than any others in this place, I swear."
Margarita’s face lit the room with a sudden beaming radiance, the curly-maned woman reflecting it in a rosy blush. Then she took stock of the room. "Um, I can come back?"
"Hello, gorgeous. If you could just give us a —"
But Tissaia was rising already, freeing her hands decisively, and Margarita rose slower after her with a sigh. Triss tried to not feel like a student as she stood watching what was clearly a silent and tense discourse between the two.
"No, Rita and I were just finishing a conversation." Tissaia smoothed her hands down her dress, and just like that, she was the Rectoress again. "I know you have plans. I won’t keep you from them."
Triss simply nodded as she drew near, taking her lover’s hand. Rita smiled down at her, eyes then dragging a bit lower to admire the trailing cut of her new moss-green bodice before bouncing back up again with an apologetic grin.
At first, the younger woman’s cheeks flamed; then, in ever-increasing degrees, smiled shyly. The lovers’ eyes held for long moments before propriety kicked back in and Triss turned back to the other standing woman.
"…Tissaia, you’re welcome to come with us. We were just going to try the new restaurant in Gors Velen." She swung her lover’s hand a little. "And you always bring out the best stories in Rita."
It was strange, this new relationship with her once-Rectoress. It was a touch awkward still, but warming. Maybe they’d even be friends in their own right in time? Gods, Sabrina and Yen would tease her terribly for it — forever the teacher’s pet they would say. But it’s not like she could call her Archmistress forever. And she wasn’t a Mrs. De Vries, but she most definitely was not a Ms. De Vries either, and really what category was left for a woman of her stature? Madam? But she was Rita’s friend, and that meant Triss was a friend-by-proxy until she earned such a position herself and maybe she was overthinking this and—
Margarita squeezed her hand and smiled down warm and grateful at her for extending the invitation.
Triss’s heart seized in her chest with love.
Yeah, this woman was worth it.
Then it seized a little more painfully.
Would they have ever known, were it not for the marks? They’d been in the same room numerous times since her Ascension and never even spoken. Sure, Triss could recognize the woman was wildly attractive, but she’d always just seemed to be in another category somehow. Another generation with their own jokes and habits and surely their own tastes of lovers. It hadn’t even crossed her mind. Surely no one would have predicted them as a match; no bards would ever think to put their names in the same story.
But gods, she’d been so blind.
For another long moment, they just smiled at each other.
Tissaia cleared her throat.
Right.
Tissaia sank into her chair again with a kind roll of the eyes. "No, no, it’s quite alright. I know you two are still in the honeymoon phase. Go make eyes at each other somewhere else." She shifted some papers on her desk, and Rita opened her mouth like she was about to protest, but Tissaia held up a finger to pause her. "Besides, I have plenty to do here that needs urgent attention."
Oh. Oh, no. Yeah, that was too much of a setup. Triss knew enough of what was going on between the friends to know where Rita was going by the quirk of her lover’s mouth and—
"Babe," Rita drawled, "the only attention that needs urgent doing is you."
Yup, there it was. Triss closed her eyes. At least they were through it n—
But Rita was continuing in far too innocent a tone. "Though…" a tip of the head (Oh gods) "Triss and I did find some fun spells in this ancient scroll recently…” (a jog of the eyebrows), “they would serve as a deliciously fine substitute in the meantime. Want them?"
"Rita!" Triss squeaked. She wasn’t ready for Tissaia to know that about her for sure. She was pretty sure she didn’t want to think about Tissaia having sex either. Her palm met her face as her lover pulled her closer and laughed.
The only solace was that in her brief moment before face-palming, Tissaia had looked just as horrified.
"No really, Tissaia," Rita’s hand rose to midair, "way better than that one we used to do with the —" her fingers began to imitate the—
Tissaia grabbed her hand midair, and Triss let out a "oh gods, thank you" as their eyes met in mutual astonishment over the chaotic wonder that is Margarita Laux-Antille.
"AND that’s enough," Tissaia grumble-laughed.
Rita looked proud, and Tissaia felt her heart grow in love for her terror of a best friend. It did feel good to laugh, she’d admit.
Rita softened. "You’ll let me know if you need anything? Or to talk?"
Tissaia inclined her head in a simultaneous assent and dismissal. "I’ll be fine."
She tried one more time. "You know you deserve the world, right?"
Tissaia winked, though it looked half-hearted. "Ah, but does the world deserve me, right?"
With a decisive nod, Rita leaned across the desk to smack a kiss on her cheek. "Don’t work too hard, you hear?"
She and Triss began their exit.
"Or, depending on the work, maybe go really hard, know what I mean?"
Triss was dragging her at this point, desperate to get away from the innuendos, as Rita shimmied her hips.
"Get out of here!" Tissaia laughed.
And with a just-caught whisper of "Don’t think I’ve forgotten you using the word 'lubricated’ so casually" and another raucous slam of the door, they were gone.
Tissaia sank back into her chair.
"…Maybe the world deserves so much more."
She grazed her fingers absently against a spot on her side.
"And maybe the world knows it."
Then, pulling out this month’s supply order, she got to work.
In a tent on the apex of King Niedamir’s mountain, Yennefer de Vengerberg traced her hand down the bare and scarred back of her Witcher. Tomorrow, likely, they would find the dragon their respective parties were seeking. And hopefully before that ass of a dwarf, Yarpen.
In another world, they might have been fighting right now. Four years ago, after he had abandoned her in Vengerberg, she thought she’d never get over the anger. An entire year they’d lived together and he somehow left without a word.
But then that Belleteyn had happened and she’d felt whatever Djinn’s magic kept them bound dissolve. Suddenly, her ire had cooled to a low simmer, and in the coming months, she’d found herself longing to see him; not out of revenge or passion, but because he felt like someone she could talk to. Another outcast of this world who might feel as she did about all this upheaval they’d been in since the mini-conjunction.
Beneath her ministrations, Geralt groaned. "Feels good."
With a smile, she bent to kiss his shoulderblade. Then the back of his neck.
"Will you talk to her, you think?"
The Witcher hmm’d roughly.
"Geralt."
He sighed, leaning up on an elbow as she settled on her side to face him. His finger traced the strong cord of her neck down between her breasts.
"With the sort of life I could offer? Always gone. Or bleeding."
She huffed a laugh. Kissed his neck; leaned back.
"Maybe it accounts for that. Maybe it knows exactly who you are and what you both need. ...Though," she eyed the jut of his pelvis on the left side, "I’ll admit I wouldn’t have seen it coming."
There, scrawled in tiny but perfect cursive, was the name Sabrina Glevissig.
He hmm’d again. Then almost casually, murmured: "What’s she like?"
Yennefer slumped to her back with a rough arrow of a laugh. "A terror." Glanced at him. "…But strong." His eyes traced her torso with a forced casualness. "Geralt… it’s ok to want her, you know?"
With a sigh, he swung over abruptly to heft his body in a plank over hers. Then dragged his torso slowly, slowly up her own in a delicious pull of friction and heat. Her back arched in a muted delight.
His body was so familiar to her, and yet unfamiliar all at the same time. It was all different now. Like it belonged to someone else. Not that she regretted doing this. If she knew Sabrina, she knew the sorceress was also likely entertaining her proclivities until she decided what to do about her own mark. But it felt good in the way an old comfort did. Or, like she imagined they did. She’d had no baby blanket, no tattered cloth rabbit that had seen her through teething and nightmares alike. But she had an imagination that could theorize the warm glow they might evoke.
As he mouthed at her neck, she smirked. "Though… I seriously question your taste."
He nosed into the space behind her ear. "You know my 'taste' before all this was you, right?"
She closed her eyes and tipped her head so he could nose further into the depths of her hair. "My point stands."
That made him pull away to eye her dryly, and with just too much a tinge of friendly concern. She regretted the joke instantly, and sighed: "It’s fine, Geralt. I’m fine."
He wouldn’t touch them. It would have been far too obvious. But she knew he’d seen her scars before, etched there on her wrist. Sometimes she rued leaving them there at her Enchantment.
"I’ll keep my eye out." He nodded at the ink on her torso. "For yours."
"It’s fine. I rather like my freedom," she said, jolting her hips up into his.
He just stared disapprovingly. She rolled her eyes.
"I don’t know them, and it gives me time. It’ll sort itself out eventually."
He settled his full weight on her and she wrapped her arms around the barrel of his back. Threaded her fingers through his white hair.
"That’s not all that’s bothering you. I can tell," he murmured.
He always was more perceptive than she expected.
She thought of the letter tucked in the insidemost pocket of her bag. It had arrived a year ago and she still hadn’t been able to wrap her head around it.
"Yennefer,
I wanted to apologize for my words in Rinde. Your worth is far more than your utility to the Brotherhood, and your agency is your own no matter any other’s opinion, mine especially.
I will not come to you in order to respect it. But, should you choose, my door is open to hear what you have to say.
Tissaia De Vries."
It wasn’t like the woman to apologize. If anything, it made Yennefer’s stomach twist with unease. What had prompted such a missive? It had to be more than just an apology, as both of them recognized (and Yennefer assumed, respected) a mutual unwillingness in the other to bend. They could have just nodded at their next crossing and a begrudging truce would have been reached. Awkward but painless.
This was… confusing.
Was she supposed to have something to say? She’ll admit, the quest for her fertility was a rash decision born of dissatisfaction with court and the ease with which people traded lives, especially those of children, for such worthless and short-lived gains. And maybe, maybe it was born of an aching loneliness as well, one she avoided observing with fierce persistence.
She didn’t need to defend it to Tissaia. Had already recognized its futility for herself. And the woman surely knew it by now. So was it to force her own apology? To make her admit she had been behaving like a child? There was no way Yennefer would lower herself to such an underhanded ploy. She did not need Tissaia’s "by your leave" anymore. She was free of that woman and that place.
But then, the letter read with honesty, not deception or manipulation. And Tissaia was not the sort of woman to need the flattery of knowing she was right. She would tell you you were a fool to your face, but she was too self-assured to need catering to afterward.
So why did Yennefer feel like she was missing something important?
"Yen." Geralt was still moving subtly over her, thumb smoothing the hair above her ear.
She offered a brash smile. "Yes. What's bothering me is how long this is taking. I thought you said you were going to outdo that night in Lyria, but so far, I’m sorely disappointed."
With a scowl, he ground his hips against hers and she moaned at the contact.
She leaned up to breathe raggedly in his ear. "Adequate, Witcher, but there better be more."
Gritting his teeth with a low growl, he hefted her knee to his side and slid in with a sharp thrust. Yennefer’s head tipped back with a yelp, as her mind blissfully emptied.
For tonight at least, she would think no more of the letter.
She would think no more of the meaningless "Skylark" scrawled along her rib.
Tonight, she would tell herself this satisfaction was enough.