@percivalofsalm conjured: "A child is no way to boost your fragile ego, Yenna.“ ✭ 𝐔𝐍𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐃
It’s the only thing that remained of Jenny. The need for a child.
Make it better. Forget her mother and father, forget Geralt of Rivia and Istredd and take the one thing she had craved in her ninety years of searching. She stared at him. God, how long she stared, bitterly. One would have expected a hailstorm, a portal that would sweep him off his feet and into the nearest lake. (Ocean, for a lake would be too kind, too small, not deep enough)
Her expression shifted - the narrowing of her violet eyes, the subtle trembling of her bottom lip. To anyone that knew Yennefer of Vengerberg well enough, and Percival of Salm was one of the few, it was so out of character. She bit back the bile, blinking away the tears because she didn’t cry. She couldn’t remember the last time she truly cried. One drop for one life.
“ You won’t help then?” Collect your thoughts. Leave it be. She dropped the book she had been reading, borrowed from the Library. Just like every time she visited him, they were tucked away in a small room within the Oxenfurt Academy and surrounded by books. Books he had written himself, books about the Conjunction of the Spheres. She enjoyed the earthy and dusty smell of old tomes, dimly remembered from her time in Aretuza.
“You’ve known me my whole life, Percy. And yet you can’t bring yourself to step down from your glass pedestal and help one of your friends.” She snapped, her voice dripping in venom. She was as cruel as he was to her. Retaliation. “What is it this time? Are you so occupied with your books?” She threw the book on the ground and jumped to her feet. “Is it your desire to be more than just a half-elf? Belong to one kind at last and study in Dol Blathanna instead of Oxenfurt?” Her voice broke but she embraced pain the way she had always done.
They would lose one another. ( But wasn’t it this fault instead of hers?)
Yennefer fiddled with the obsidian star around her velvet choker. One quirk among many. From the fluffing of perfectly arranged ringlets to her obsidian star, because Yennefer of Vengerberg was only ever known for her eccentricities. “I’m not one of your novices, Percy. I did not ask you to patronize me and my decision to become a mother.” Her grimace broke into a hard and bitter laugh. “You Ban Ard boys are so presumptuous. You don’t have to give up anything and now you speak to me about my fragile ego?”
there’s a pause where percy realizes he sounded much more callous then he initially intended. sometimes, he spends too much time with his books, lost in worlds far, far away from his own that he forgets how to COMMUNICATE properly without sounding like an absolute prick. his nose wrinkles as she speaks, and he lets her air out her hurt and anger. he rubs a hand over his mouth, relaxing back against his throne of nothing.
his lips press tightly together as she attacks him. he thinks it’s deserved in this situation. he smiles bitterly at his glass pedestal, but he agrees with her. “my desire to be more than half-elf?” percy finds himself asking incredulously. oh. that makes him laugh.
he’s planning his answers carefully, though his ears perk at her last statement. mmm. that hits differently than she expects. it would be the perfect barb had he not been part ELF. if he had been a fully human mage, he would have no right to be offended by her final statement. percy tilts his head up, and he rises to stand. to face away from her. to control himself, as he has for the past three centuries at being a mage. he thinks of all of the sacrifices he’s made to fight for what he wanted. he thinks of the begging of his elven brothers during their times of need. he thinks of the torture he endured.
“i ask you to explore why you want this.” percy finds himself saying, letting his pain roll off his shoulders. this isn’t about him. she came to him for help. “yenna, the magic used on you is a permanent. we both know it.” he adjusts his spectacles, looking over the tomes before him, finger brushing along their spines as he searches for a title. “your quest will only bring you heartbreak. i think, deep down, you know this. i do not know why anyone would want to bring a child into this hateful world, but those are my own biases. perhaps we should breed more human-elven hybrids.” a pause. “your path already has been a painful one, yennefer of vengeberg. why must you give yourself more suffering for a conclusion that will never satisfy you?” he turns to her. “even if you did have a child, what would you do with it? do you truly wish to bring life to this world? for what reason? yenna, i know you. perhaps less than i realize now, but... i hate to see you in pain. truly. and this path will only lead to sorrow. i cannot help you because there is nothing. perhaps magic lost. it is different reviving the uterus of someone who hasn’t had it magically removed. you cannot regrow something that has been sealed off with such old magic.”
percy has had to live with terrible realities, and over time he fell complacent to them, choosing to hide away with his books than allow himself to be further affected by this world. ( this will change in but a few years from now, when chaos will break through and the war will rage to terrifying heights once again. but for now.) perhaps that is why he wishes for her to become complacent to them as well; he has lost his fight. his spark. his own hope. he has no dreams. he has his books and his glass pedastal.
snowghoul
vaporwave
origamiaround
kianamaiart
prguitarman
tangentwithtanner
