#the witcher Netflix spoilers

[kaori04]

Does anybody else wishes that one time Jaskier would just loose it and go apeshit instead of doing his usual coping mechanism joke

[do-androids-dream-ao3acc]

Look, I haven't even watched, but it came to my attention that they did, in fact, include THE scene in TWN 3, and since I couldn't find any gifs of the moments the whump community is interested in, here they are. Thank me for my service because I don't even like that face (but I DO like the collapse and the shaky hand!)

[mantra4ia]

I didn't think it was possible for an adaptation to break my fandom heart, however

I just finished season 3 of the Witcher on Netflix

and I cannot yet put into words how disheartened I feel about it except to say 1) bigger in scale doesn't always mean better in quality and 2) I feel like 90% of the commentary in "the making of season 3" is hype.

In my opinion, a majority of the dialogue in this season is painful no matter how hard the actors try to deliver them sincerely and the people who are trying to upsell how faithful it is to the books are clearly omitting much context of the books. I do not feel like reliving the dialogue to site a litany of grievance, but "you'd be dead already" was beaten to death, as was "never lost, always found." The scripting pen was a lot more clever in the days of death and destiny circa season 1. Not just clever, but cutting, sassy even in the midst of purposeful crudeness, artful, and complex. It didn't need to spell things out for you and could let you stumble into unraveling meaning whereas this season clocked you over the head. And it wasn't just the actual lines on the page, but the timing of their delivery — for example the monologues in combat — that makes a bad situation go from rough to rags. Cahir ("my life is yours" speech) and Vilgefortz ("the hardest part was holding back") have some of the worst offending instances. That, and when they threw in a "he's having a heart attack" medical drama one liner in the midst of battle on the Isle of Thanedd, I wanted to 🤦 smack a skull.

The set dressing, when it's not overwhelming —the outlandishness of Redania, back to back with the bombastic excesses of mages on the Isle hardly gives you a moment to discern the differences, it seems homogeneously over the top — makes be sad (footnote: random bowls of apples in hallways of an academy where people can conjure magical meals at will is just sort of silly in a very 90s movie, castle interior stereotype way). I don't think that one set or scenic shot caught my eye in a memorable way, and considering we saw Shaerrawedd this season that's a shame. Yarpen's tiny house is one of my few exceptions of well designed spaces. We also could have used more contrast in design by seeing life/ stylistic choices within the empire — given that the story from here on goes into the war trenches —and so it is disappointing that the few shots we get of Nilfgaard center around an underwhelming Emyhr as opposed to culture, mentality, and actual sense of the opposition and the scale of them.

Also, there were a few props that made me want to shut off my television in terms of quality on camera. Example: the first time we see Milva draw her bow. That poor, ridiculous bow that is neither a good example from text or a nod to any archers.

The fights do not all have their own distinct style as the commentary suggests, and the ones that do have distinguishable flare are filled with artful camera work for the sake of itself; as opposed to adding to the fight it was often distracting. There were also excessive cuts at various camera angles that were superfluous, as evidenced in the walk up leading to Geralt vs Vilgefortz. Two fight sequences were a joy to watch: the Rats escape and one of the opening sequences where Geralt confronts the bounty hunters and we see him walk away through the eyes of the man that he just beheaded as the skull hits the ground. It was an interesting stylistic choice with memorable impact. Nothing that hits like Blaviken combat, but a highlight.

The monster design (the flesh monster and others) makes me miserable, the rendering of which take me out of the fights built around them. Gone are the days of the Stryga and the Bruxa.

Not concluding the the first or the second act of season 3 with the siege of Aretuza and the destruction of Tor Lara was a mistake of timing. Following the battle, the subsequent desert scenes (and Brokilon to some extent) dragged on. Even weird, trippy cameos couldn't save them. Freya/Ciri has some decent beats of progressive desperation descending into madness leading up to finding "little horse" and confronting the demons of her psyche, but the cutting and the placement of the desert sequence does it no favors.

Speaking further on Aretuza, the battle of mages and scoia'tal missed a lot of moments. If we were going to spend precious screen time dividing the familial core four (Yen/Jaskier/Geralt/Ciri) so that Yen can go back for Tissaia— knowing that very soon in the plot it will be divided again when Ciri is portalled and someone is captured by Vilgefortz — then the battle better be worth it. It wasn't entirely. The conflict opened with a very "for the stage" kind of choreography with the assembly of mages. The conflict ramped up with dimeritium arrows (kinda predictable) and elven guts, and then ended on a strange note with Alzur's Thunder, an interesting nod to game play with 50/50 execution on screen. Given that this season likes narrative voiceovers, there was a lot they could have done with Alzur's Thunder in terms of sound, flashbacks, interior cuts of Tor Lara, narration, or even spell work of Yennefer being able to enter Tissaia's mind, to nicely harken back to the themes of control and deepest fears, when Tissaia's spell casting and loss of control parallels Yennefer's early years (lightning in a bottle), and each character comes full circle in pulling chaos back from the edge. But those themes are overshadowed by flash and bang. The opportunity for a contrasting small / personal moment with Yennefer and Tissaia amidst the larger battle is lost.

I'm sorry, but when LSH says this season is very character driven, I don't know what final cut she's watching. It feels like we're racing through plot points A-Z while nearly none of the character relationships get time to breath and impart their emotional beats. Spoiler alert: I should feel devastated when Vilgefortz beats Geralt, literally breaks him, but I don't. I should feel bad when Tissaia dies, I don't. They're trying to rush feelings between Triss and Istredd, Fringilla and Francesa, that I really can't be bothered about because there are so many characters given side quests that no one really gets their due. Least among them in the supporting cast Phillipa, which has animosity with Tissaia that doesn't land, a relationship with Dijkstra that doesn't land, a sidepiece that doesn't land, and is (apart from some interesting wardrobe, hair and makeup choices) reduced to a presence that provides forewarning about Lydia and Vilgefortz. And least among the main cast Geralt, who spends a whole lot of screen time in passive action exuding quiet contempt for other characters. Which is a shame, because if this truly is the last time we see Henry as Geralt, they should have given this man free reign to burn the barn down.

One shining note: I truly appreciate that we bookend this season with narration from Yennefer and, to a lesser extent, Geralt. It is a nice, if slightly less eloquent, homage to the corresponding letters in the novels (pieced together from multiple books). I would have loved far more for each episode to make some use of narration, as a kind of through-thread for this season, in order to get equal turns from Ciri and Jaskier. Ciri has some great internal dialogue of things that she wishes she could say to Yennefer but doesn't before their family splits apart (unspoken moments of respect, adoration, and love that get quickly summarized by ice skating montages). Ans Jaskier is quite often the "unreliable" narrator in sections of the novels, which flashes backwards and forwards from his slightly mythologized autobiography as a world famous bard. Both of them really needed their turn in this season to be an overarching voice.

This season hurts. I'm glad if you are a Witcher / Sapkowski fan and you enjoyed yourself in season 3. But it really let me down, the creative direction and didn't seem to come together into a cohesive tone (it couldn't strike the balance between humor and gravitas), vision, or unfolding of the story.

I don't know if I can bring myself to rewatch this season a second time with fresh eyes and hope for the best. But I will miss Henry Cavill, and have much respect for cast and crew.

[vordemtodgefeit]

i have to say, so far they’re healing my wounds from the last two seasons of bard maltreatment

[jaskiersboobs]

Fringilla x Francesca power couple reunited baby!!!!

[untaintedtea]

The Witcher S3 spoilers (nsfw) idek I just need to put this somewhere

when I saw this

I thought of this (Bridgerton S1)

anyone else?? LOL anyway yeah that’s probably my headcanon. thanks for reading

also while I’m here I just wanna complain about the continued Yen(nefer) (nick)name crimes yet again. “Yenna” exists you know!! idek why I expected any different but it would have been nice lol

[arianaofimladris]

I tried the third season. After the initial facepalm of the first three minutes, after swallowing the fact that Yennefer-imposter character is acting exactly opposite to Yennefer character (no surprise there), I decided to look at it as a parody. Worked just fine for about the next fifteen minutes. I mean it was in a way hilarious, watching how after two seasons the scriptwriters realised they had forgotten to show in any way any kind of relation between Geralt and Yennefer, other than them being two characters who randomly fucked in two episodes of the first season. So to make it up and pretend to build some kind of background and past, the characters were made to casually reminisce all the weird places they had sex in. Yeah, while the physical aspect of their relations is a huge part in canon, in relation to what season 2 presented, and what we get to see, it was ridiculous.

I really liked Yarpen, the actor is doing great job and Yarpen seems lively and in character.

And just as I was beginning to settle in watching this as a comedy and parody, Jaskier came in, looking and behaving pathetic and sort of unable to utter a sentence. Mouthy, cheeky, cocky and impertinent Dandelion reduced to this. Nah, thanks.

And then sadly I was reminded of that bullshit subplot with the elves and Francesca, followed by some bullshit about the elves obsessing over Ciri, followed by the bullshit Ciri served about how she is going to unite everyone. What the hell. It's not Star Wars,, for God's sake. Followed by the Sherrawed fighting scene that looks more elaborated than that sneak peak they published some time ago, but still has so many idiotic sequences and illogical shots (like Geralt strolling casually in the background while a second later he's running and picking back a knife he had supposedly thrown?. Or the fact that they made a trap and Geralt left Rience alive (yeah, because the plot will demand his presence later)) .

I gave up at the "drama" of Jaskier being shot and "dying" and being ridiculous while doing so. The cringe was too hard there.

All in all, I tried only to make sure my initial idea of simpky watching some cool scenes without having to deal with shitload of the plot the scriptwriters came up with was the best I could have. I guess I will just wait for the Internet to tell me where to find in these episodes scenes I might enjoy watching. Like Geralt fighting. Or perhaps Geralt visiting Codringer and Fenn, I saw a photo and it looked nice.

Yennefer is still butchered to the point where she only shares the name and eye color with Yennefer of Vengerberg. The last word I would ever use to describe Yennefer of Vengerberg is pathetic or pleading and that's what I see - but then hardly a surprise, given how the character arc was butchered in the previous season, they had to continue that.

With Ciri the issue remains too - her character is still being written as that of a teenager, at this Belletyn festival she acts like a cheery kid and that is all nice, except it is being performed by an actress who simply looks too old. Don't get me wrong, she looks nice and pretty, but she looks her age, between 25 and 30, she does not have this kind of "endless child type of beauty" - and as a result her looks do not correspond with how her character is written. It's jarring.

Geralt is always nice to watch except when you get a close up look on the hideous lenses they still haven't changed in all this time.

[theladyofspaceandtime]

IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE FAKE CIRI?!? Wait…wait..wait!

LAUREN!

[this-is-not-a-slow-burn]

So I finished the Witcher S3 last night and it was lightyears better than the first half of the season. However it still had some huge issues. There were many scenes that were aborted and rendered basically throwaway nonsense because of how terribly written the dialouge was, or how dismissive and weirdly paced they were. They felt like placeholders. They were obviously tossed in because there was information in them that was important to future scenes, but did they hire 5th graders to write them?

Though I will say it was quite effective for showing just how absolutely insignificant Rience had become, and how absolutely not worth a big scene he was. He was a horrible person who didn't deserve to be given attention, so Geralt acted accordingly. It was perfect. (I haven't gotten to that part of the books yet so I'm not sure if that's how it goes or if the show took liberties there)

But that technique in other scenes was jarring. As if the writers forgot they had written [JASK AND YEN SCENE GOES HERE] and just left it, without actually writing the scene. That or someone found continuity errors while filming and so they wrote the dialogue on the fly and filmed it.

But nothing will ever be as bad as the scene in the first half of the season with Ciri riding from The Wild Hunt on a very obviously fake horse head on a green screen. My god I literally burst out laughing at that scene. The absolute opposite of what should have happened in a scene about horse mounted murder elves bearing down on the princess they need for taking over the world.

[ruiniel]

Hm. Casual fan here, personal opinion time. I've read the book series, devoured it, cried over it (some parts are that good). I've seen people's woes and very familiar with all the deviations (which once again are happening).

But is it just me or did they place just a wee bit more effort in the new Witcher season? The acting is great (shout out to Yennefer, Jaskier, Radovid, Dijkstra, Cahir, Rience, Philippa etc) there's chemistry between the found family, the costumes have improved. The setting feels more lived in, everyone is gorgeous (the creatures aren't too shabby either), they used the cgi a little more mindfully, it feels (so far). There's a little more room to breathe for character development.

There were *some* lines in reference to the books (ha, the unicorn mention in passing) which I appreciated.

Not a fan of using the huge reveal before its time (The White Flame & Ciri's connection) but I like what they did with The Wild Hunt, and we had our first glimpse of Eredin, uh oh.

Right now the adaptation feels to me like a dragon egg that took its sweet time to hatch. All in all, watching part 2 where everything's supposed to hit the fan, again.

[kaori04]

he really did produce a next banger epic heroic song by watching geralt grunting, amazing what a genius

[do-androids-dream-ao3acc]

I’m... sorry, Radovid? Jaskier/Radovid? Oooookay. 

[autisticwitcher]

I'll try not to make a too long post about this because like, whatever, but the thing that has me the most upset about the Witcher s3 is actually the way the writing treats the physical space these characters inhabit because this is supposed to be a big fantasy story! This is a big continent in which different countries are at war with each other! Nilfgaard trying to take over the rest of the contintent is a big deal because it would make the empire MASSIVE. But you don't get that feeling from the show because because their writing just chaotically flip flops between character constellations and places to hit as many plot beats from the books as it can until the world has collapsed so that everyone somehow lives in an area that doesn't feel bigger than a large metropolitan area.

Take the sene where Ciri is chased by the Wild Hunt for example. That scene is lifted fromt he books, but it doesn't have the same context as the book and so it's free of any internal logic. In the books Ciri and Yen are in Gors Velen, Ciri and Yen fight, the whole bath scene yada yada but Ciri learns that Geralt is nearby on a farm so she runs away to Geralt, gets overtaken by the hunt and Geralt sensing with his Witcher sense that something is wrong in the area goes to check it out and finds (and rescues) Ciri. In the show we don't actually know where exactly Geralt is. Is he close? Is he far away? Where even is that castle, how long was he traveling with Teryn, where do Anika and Otto live? Doesn't matter. Geralt is going to Ciri and Ciri ran away vaguely towards Geralt so somehow they run into each other in the middle of nowhere in the woods right when the Hunt dramatically reaches her. Yay father daughter reunion, we can now move onto our next plot point. (And yes I get that this was also supposed to resemble their meeting in S1 but like, that at least made sense because we are told they are in the same area and also looking for each other and also fate intervened a little bit...but you're telling me destiny somehow gave them a magic father daughter radar?)

Or take the Radskier meeting in Loxia: How tf did Radovid know where Jaskier was? I get that Loxia is a settlement by Thanedd, the students are also lodging there while the guests occupy their rooms, but like, when they show the house it looks like it's in the middle of the woods. If it had been a townhouse, then yeah sure this makes perfect sense. Radovid learns Jaskier's in town, decides to stop by. But no he goes out the middle of nowhere where this house seems to stand, then sneaks about when he runs into the forcefield, not even waiting for the door to open, to get a fun "Jaskier thinks there's an intruder but actually it's his boy Radovid" sequence which...aesthetically fun but WHERE is the narrative logic to any of that?

Cahir is shown in some fancy castle in Nilfgaard in one scene, then the next have him and several other riders carrying a lot of goods to the elves who are somewhere in the North, potentially up in Kaedwin where their last marked location was, maybe closer to the border in Lyria or Temeria or somewhere. How did he get there? Did the whole convoy step through a portal? Did he portal to the nearest post and form the convoy there? We can imagine the possibilities but it would have been so much better to show it just to give the distances weight and meaning.

And don't even get me started on Mistle in Gors Velen...like great that she and Ciri had that interaction, the moment itself was fun, but like...do you know how far Gors Velen is from Gheso? How little sense it makes for her to be there and then later be elsewhere? That there are several books worth of plot because Ciri stepped through a portal that lands her in the middle of the Nilfgaardian Empire where she is alone and has to somehow survive while her parents travel leagues to find and save her?? And so having Mistle meet her in Gors Velen only to later hang out with the Rats in Gheso two weeks later makes it feel like Ciri stepped through a portal in New York to land in New Jersey? When it should be more like stepping into a portal in New York and ending up in Texas?

Thanedd and the political plot are sooo central this season but because everyone immediately reaches everyone else and characters even on horseback travel long distances so fast it feel like they're squabbling about who gets to rule which burrough of New York or something, not countries on a continent. Like look at the map:

It doesn't feel like these characters exist on this map, and that just throws off the whole vibe. Like yeah some of the writing decisions are stupid, some of the decisions characters make have no internal logic, and the costuming is mostly bad. But I feel like all that would be much better if it all felt more consequential because there was something behind it all. But instead only the places the characters are in right now matter and they get there because they have to for plot and they keep going back and forth because it's more fun if they split up but also they need to reunite but also they need to split up again and so we keep riding around in the same part of the woods.

Idk where I wanted to go with this, maybe I'm just nitpicky. Maybe I'm too autistic and got worked up about the wrong thing, but it's just so frustrating that it feels like they did not consider why plot point A leads to point B in the books and so just haphazardly throw shit together because they think it looks fun in the show. And the problems with the physical space just exemplify that.

[vordemtodgefeit]

i wonder if they’ll include that reason why emhyr wants ciri

[fluffyspaceshark]

Jaskier being bisexual makes me so happy.

[justinewt]

The Aguara of Nilfgaard - THE WITCHER Fanfiction Chapter Three

[THE WITCHER FANFICTION-MASTERLIST]

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Summary: Imprisoned and tortured for a whole year, Revynah had started to lose hope. She was going to die alone in a dungeon in Cintra, her whole body mutilated and her mind shattered, the white of her skin turned red from the blood she was covered in. She had lost hope of ever reuninting with her brother. This was the second time in her life that she stopped listening to what her mother used to say. She stopped clinging on to hope and let herself fall in the darkness of chaos but unlike the first time, she was powerless, at the mercy of sadistic guards.

Words: 4.9k

Warnings: The Witcher season 3 Part 1 Spoilers (episode 2 “Unbound” and episode 3 “Reunion”), torture, mention of waterboarding and flogging, description of wounds, scars, blood, angst, brief fluff scene, mention of murders

“Cut her down.” Revynah weakly lifted her, watching the knight walk around her. Eyes tired, she looked up when the chains clinked above her as he untied her.

It had been several days since they had left her hanging from the ceiling of that dark, damp cell in which those same knights had enjoyed torturing her every day oher life since she was imprisoned a year ago. She had never been executed by Emhyr, like Fringilla told her she would, for betraying Nilfgaard but considering what had been done to her instead, she would almost have preferred to be killed. The first couple months, she was isolated in that very cell, and they would flog her. All day, every day and for hours at a time, usually about a hundred times a week, sometimes a little less. It would only stop when the knight’s arm started to hurt but they would take turns so quickly after the previous one took a break, another would take on and keep flogging her while the other asked the questions, because as they whipped her repeatedly, they interrogated her on what she knew of her brother’s whereabouts, and therefore Ciri’s too but she didn’t know anything and she wasn’t even lying. She hadn’t seen her brother in over a century, since their mother left him in a forest, and she was brought to Aretuza to learn how to control her chaos and magic. 

The last she saw of her brother was him running through the forest with a wooden bucket to get water from a nearby stream for their mother. She told them this more times than she could count but the emperor was reportedly not pleased with the information she was willing to give them and there was nothing she could do about it because she had no information to give them in the first place. The only somewhat recent things she knew about her brother were things they already knew and after about a month, they stopped interrogating her, but they kept going with the flogging, though it became less frequent. She had been flogged on her back, legs and stomach. It was a total butchery. Blood was constantly dripping down her whole body as every inch of her skin was covered in welts and large opened wounds, and a pool of blood was growing under her feet, her toes dangling above the floor. They had left her alone for a couple weeks and she thought that they were done with her, leaving her to starve to death, die from her wounds or from exposure. She couldn’t even use her magic because of the shackles at her wrist, which prevented her from doing so and she could only wait for time to pass by, and ultimately die, but she didn’t. She heard a guard come in with a piece of stale bread. They were done interrogating her as it was pointless, but they weren’t so done with toying with her. A doctor was called in to check her wounds and the poor man couldn’t even bare the sight, nor could he the stench that linged in the room. To Revynah’s relief, he declared that if she was to get more whipping, she wouldn’t survive it.

“The White flame is generous.” The knight then said with a smirk, knowing that it wasn’t an act of kindness. 

The emperor of Nilfgaard was incapable of that, and even when she found herself to be his loyal mage, she never believed that. He saved her and Fringilla from the same cells and dungeon they were now both locked up in. It was hard for her to believe that there had been a day when she was an assassin and spy under Emhy’rs thumb, sent to the North to carry assignments he gave her, that is until she learned of the White Wolf and everything she believed in was shaken, the narrative and reality she had built for herself was shattered completely, for the sole reason that she now knew her brother lived. And it was enough to drive the loyalty she had for Emhyr out of her heart and mind, though it wasn’t as effective regarding Cahir, but she would rather not think about him as of now. A year ago, after Fringilla and him were pushed into her cell, she thought they would both be left to rot in there with her but Cahir, now demoted as a simple soldier, was sent off to raid caravans and Fringilla taken somewhere else to taste wine with other prisoners, to make sure the emperor wouldn’t get poisoned. 

And, well, Revynah’s torture began, or really, tortures in the plural. After the flogging sessions became scarcer, though they kept on happening every now and then, spilling more blood to feed the pool at her feet, the knights would sometimes forget about her, or so they said and leave her in the cell for days at a time, coming back with very little to feed her. The first time they unchained her in weeks was to sit her on a stool in the center of the room, only to tie her back to the ring in the ceiling with a longer chain, keeping her arms stretched above her head but she could barely feel them anymore as they had gotten so numb over time. Their game this time was to waterboard her, again, all day every day, for hours at a time. A guard grabbed her hair, pulling her head backwards while another held a cloth over her face and the other poured the water. It seemed to be very entertaining for the three of them. Seeing the sorceress struggle, pulling on her chains, hurting herself and hearing her gag as she almost drowned each time because they kept pouring water for so long. She was left disoriented, gasping for air and her face so wet she could barely feel herself crying from the emotional distress the whole ordeal put her in.

They didn’t give a shit, and this became a horrific routine for Revynah. Everyday they would come back with more water and less food. They called her names, insulted her and laughed at her misery, wasting air she craved. They perpetrated this torture at a steady pace for a little over a month, then once again they did it less often and then one day Revynah was dressed in a worn-out cape and dragged into a larger room where she found Fringilla and other prisoners, empty glasses on the table at which they were seated, slumped on for some. For the first few days, Revynah was lying on the floor in a corner of the room, her eyes blank, staring into space and she didn't move a finger. The only evidence of her survival was her eyes blinking and her chest heaving as she breathed weakly. She didn't know why but Fringilla would give her some of the food that was given to them, helping her take a few sips of the wine they were left with. The first time she tasted it, she spat it out but eventually, she was so thirsty she had resigned herself to drinking it. When she spoke again after months of torture, it was to thank Fringilla. The two were never friends and Fringilla didn’t really like Revynah from what she had gathered over the years. The latter was an older and somewhat more powerful sorceress, despite never actually graduating from Aretuza, since she ran away before the ceremony. 

They knew that Fringilla was the official mage serving the emperor and Revynah did his dirty biding in the North. Until she came back to the academy with her colleague, no one had heard from her in years if not decades. There had been rumors of what people had called ‘the aguara of Nilfgaard’ but after she was imprisoned by the usurper for being a mage, the rumors began to be told less vividly throughout the empire. What was funny to Revynah was that she had never even been condemned for what she did to earn herself that nickname, she was only ever arrested for the fact that she had an affinity to chaos and never for the murders she committed, leaving disembowelled bodies like a trail behind her, though no one ever caught her. This was one of the drakest chapters of her life, and her biggest secret. Though, one single person knew about what she did, and it was the emperor. It was because he knew she could kill without ever being seen or caught, that he had made her his assassin. With the brotherhood having lost track of her and the fact she literally had no one to ever turn to, she was the perfect candidate. And she was very efficient at her job, so much so, Emhyr entrusted her with more duties. He probably thought she was one of the few people with real, unfailing loyalty to him, since he had rescued her from that cell, she was rotting in. He had some trust in her, though he didn't like mages in general, but she never failed him, until she did.

“Bring her back with the others.” The guards who had untied her dragged her down the dungeon's corridor and dropped her heavily into the room with the other prisoners. She was in such a constant state of pain, her whole body aching every second of the day, that she didn't even react and just stared at the ceiling for a moment, until Fringilla's exhausted face appeared above her, catching her gaze. The latter helped her sit at the table, on which Revynah could only collapse on. She watched Fringilla as she drank from her cup.

“Come on, drink up.” She handed her cup to the red-head and Revynah straightened up with difficulty, leaning on her arm as best she could. She almost dropped the cup but managed to take a few sips before putting it down. It tasted terrible but her stomach was so empty, she could have swallowed anything. She quickly fell asleep from the exhaustion. That night, she had a bad dream, like every other night for a year now. They were restless nights, plagues by incoherent and dreadful nightmares. A succession of disjointed and deformed memories entangled with her traumas and the torture she endured.

That night, she dreamed that she was back in the town where she lived the happiest and quietest couple of years of her whole life, where she met the father of her child and started to build a family of her own, until she was found by the brotherhood and everything went up in flames, except her. But this time, there was no fire. She walked down the street, looking at the piles of bodies surrounding her. Blood covered the cobblestones. She realized she held something in her hands and looked down. In her arms was the bloody corpse of her very own baby, a gaping hole in his tiny chest, and in her hand, a pumping heart. An immense despair then assailed her and a feeling in her guts made her realize that it was her doing. She was suddenly convinced that she had gutted her own child, as well as everyone else in town. She broke down in tears and fell to her knees, accidentally pressing the heart in her hand. The organ exploded at her face and she gasped, closing her eyes. Her hair was pulled down and she started gagging, a cloth on her face. She recognized the fat laughs of the knights, pouring water over her face, except it wasn’t water. It was blood they were drowning her with. She woke back in the room with a start, her eyes wide and her breath short. She was shaking and sweating profusely, trying to take deep breaths to calm herself down. Today was the day for another type of torture. She joined the others in tasting wine to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. When she wasn’t being flogged or waterboarded, drinking cups after cups of wine was what she was forced to do and with her whole-body aching and her throat sore, the alcohol didn’t make things better. She couldn’t even enjoy it. The wounds on his body barely had any time to heal before the knights came back at it, reopening the fresh scars with their lashes. And to make it even better, she was being denied any care so she was left to deal with her pain on her own so she drank as much as she could when she was on wine-testing duty. If she didn’t have those damn shackles and chains that repressed her magic, she would have painted the walls of the dungeon with their guts.

Sitting in the corner of the room, her head resting against the wall, Revynah stared ahead of her, half listening to the exchange between Fringilla and one of their cellmates as they drank. The cell was shrouded in darkness, lit by a few candles clustered at the center of the table and a large fire burning in the fireplace next to her. None of them had seen the light of day in months. It felt like they had been here forever and if it weren’t for Fringilla, Revynah would have had no idea that it had been a year since they were imprisoned. Being isolated for as long as she had and only ever being tortured messed up with her. She rolled her head to the side when she heard mice squeaking somewhere in the room. Revynah scooted closer to the fire, her face turned towards it. It wasn’t even winter and yet she felt so cold. She had chills all over her body.

“You wanna hear a good joke?” Fringilla was leaning on the table, her hand supporting her head. “I was born with more power than most could comprehend. Learned to bend Chaos to my will. Designed to live forever young and beautiful in the upper echelons of the court. Only to die here in a wine cellar with all of you…”

“You know the problem with you mages?” The man’s voice was hazy with alcohol. Fringilla glanced at the other prisoners around them and looked back at him.

“What?”

“You’re too bloody serious.” Fringilla was seized with a fit of laughter, nodding to the statement, slumping on the table.

“Yeah, helping the Brotherhood keep their power by proppin’ up rotten kingdoms is serious work.”

“Won’t be the case when Nilfgaard takes over.”

“Why?”

“Emhyr has no use for the mages. Case in point.”

“If I ever get out of here, I’ll play that game much smarter.” The former sorceress said to herself.

“I saw a man try to escape once. They sent the dogs after him. Tore him, limb from limb. The Emperor only absolves you once you’re dead, love.” His head tilted forward and fell gently on the table. Hearing his voice fade, Revynah glanced in their direction and crossed Fringilla’s gaze as she tried to get him to wake up, but he didn’t even react when she almost pushed off his seat and called for the guards. Another one of them had died. A knight came in with a body bag and threw it on the man.

“Put him in the bag. The lads will help me throw him out.” Fringilla sighed and Revynah saw her stare at the late prisoner. She wondered what she was thinking about as she stayed quiet for a few seconds before looking at her fellow sorceress against the wall. It didn't take her long to figure out the plan she had in mind. They were going to play dead. Fringilla called out to the guard, staring at Revynah, who stared back at her with her eyes blank. “What? Come on. Put him in the bag already.” 

Fringilla stayed quiet for a few seconds and turned to point at the red head. She spoke with a calm and poised voice. 

“We need more bags.”

“All that wine just makes them heavier.” The knight grunted as he grabbed the last body bag lying in the cart, throwing them away into the forest.

Revynah was still biting her hand hard to keep her from moeaning in pain after they threw her body rolling down among the others. She was going to have bruises all over her arms given how she had hit the ground and she could feel her wounds had reopened. The fabric of her clothing was sticking to her bloodied back. Her hand had gone numb from the biting, but it was unmatched by the pain that had gripped her as she felt the unhealed scars all over her back rip open in her fall. It had brought tears to her and a quiet whimper that she hadn't been able to contain but none of the two guards there had picked up on it and once they took care of the last body, they walked away. The horses neighed and the cart drove away. There was a silence lulled by the crackling flames of a nearby fire. Revynah tried to calm herself, unclenching her jaw from her hand with a shaky breath. She only dared to move when she heard noises next to her. She knew it was Fringilla getting herself out of her body bag. She got the confirmation when the latter called her name to find out what bag she was in and get her out in turn. 

Fringilla crawled to her and pulled open her bag and helped pulling her out. Gritting her teeth and grunting Revynah sat up and it took her a few seconds and some deep steady breaths to get over how badly she was hurting all over, and urged by her fellow sorceress, she eventually followed her lead, climbing with difficulty over the dead bodies. It was one of the most strenueous efforts she ever had to make. Fringilla grabbed her hands and helped her up. The two staggered as they walked away. They glanced at each other, looking to their left, watching the lights of the fortified city of Cintra twinkling in the distance, and to their right, a dark path stretching as far as the eye could see in the forest. The first choice they had to make was in which direction they would go, and they both knew that they couldn't go towards Cintra, or they would either be thrown back in the dungeon or killed on sight. They also had to take care of getting rid of their chains and cleaning themselves up because they were scary to look at, and Revynah needed to heal her wounds, or she would quite die from the infection that would follow. It was already a miracle that she had survived so much abuse for so long, but it would be better to not test her luck any longer. They decided to go somewhere east, away from Cintra and went deeper into the forest, walking for several hours until Revynah’s leg gave out and she fell to the ground. Fringilla shook her, trying to get her to wake up but she had lost consciousness.

“Revynah.” 

The sorceress slowly opened her eyes as she heard a voice calling her name, those eyelashes blurring her vision. She felt the soft warmth of the sun's rays licking the skin of her cheeks and a peaceful smile tugged her lips. She put her hand near his head and stroked the sheet of the mattress she was lying on and opened her eyes when her name was spoken a second time, but this time the voice was clearer and more distinct and she recognized the voice of Cahir, who made him suddenly open his eyes, realizing that something was wrong. Sitting up in bed, she looked around, contorting herself to feel her back, the skin of which turned out to be soft and without any scars. She pulled the blanket aside and revealed her bare legs and her skin was as flawless as the rest of her body. And Cahir was nowhere to be seen in the bedroom, which was the very bedroom she had stayed in ever since Emhyr became the emperor. 

A room where she had also spent a lot of nights with the former Commander of the Nilfgaardian army. Nights that now felt very bitter-sweet to think about. The relationship that was born between them was clearly not something she could have imagined would happen. And when her loyalty to Emhyr had crumbled, their relationship had soured somewhat and turned into something more ambiguous. They both felt something shifted and the truth was that their views didn't align anymore, and it became clearer when she ran away from the fiel during Sodden hill battle. She did miss what they had but she still felt wronged by him as he stood and watched the guards drag her to a cell after Fringilla ordered her away. He didn’t move a finger. She felt that even if in the end, it didn’t do anything, he could have still tried to step in and say something. In the early months of her being tortured, she blamed him and Fringilla. She was angry but quickly the pain became such that there was no room left for that resentment. She couldn’t even think straight any longer but started blaming the real culprit as it was Emhyr who ordered that she be tortured until death.

“Cahir?” She called for him, feeling that this whole thing must have been some dream or hallucination, as she got up from the bed and walked in the room. Approaching a cupboard, she picked up a small red mesh pouch, tied by a single golden string. It was filled with white rose petals, kept fresh by a spell. The spell also brought some protection to the person who kept this object on him. She stared at it for a hot second, remembering the day she gave this small gift to the knight. This whole thing wasn’t just some dream, it was a memory, and she it was replaying itself before her eyes. The moment she realized that something clicked in her mind and her body started acting on its own. She slipped the flower into a small envelope and turned to a screen. The fluttering moment she had felt a second before was gone and it was as if the situation had unlocked itself. This strange silence had been disrupted by the sound of fabrics behind the open door of a wardrobe and she instinctively turned in that direction, a smile on her lips. A freshly shaved and well-groomed Cahir appeared as the dresser was closed. Revynah had an inner moment of surprise, but her smile didn't flinch. He didn't look like the last time she saw him. Revynah walked past a mirror and for a split second, she doubled herself in her reflection, showing behind her present self like a shadow; hair dirty and in a mess, eyes tired and overall, badly messed up.

“What’s in your hand?”

“It’s a little something I made… I pulled the petals of a white rose apart and put them in this pouch. Add a little preservation spell to keep the petals fresh and pretty, and a protection spell, and you've got yourself a nice, enchanted object.” She sketched a bigger smile but then smirked. “You know I don’t do gifts, so you better take it.”

“Why did you make this?” He asked softly as he took it from her hand, looking at the petals inside.

“The White Flame is sending me out in some town in the North, to get intail on some dude. And kill him. Anyway, I'll be gone for a while.” Revynah both loved and hated to see this memory again. Because, after she went on to fulfil her mission, she also learned of the witcher they called the White wolf, hearing people sing Jaskier’s songs in a tavern. And learning her little brother was still alive after all this time was a game changer for her. This trip in the North took her from a follower of Emhyr to a deserter of the Nilfgaardian empire and traitor, but she didn’t know that back then.

“And you give me extra protection for when you’re gone?” He cupped her cheek with his free hand.

“Not that you need it, commander Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach.” She chuckled, looking into his blue eyes. 

“Say my name again.” He leaned in and their faces got so close that their lips brushed against each other's, the tips of their noses touching. She moaned his name as he kissed her and she woke up, his name still on her lips, echoing in her mind. She carefully brought her hand to her face, still able to feel his touch and sighed as her hand fell back onto her lap. The silence that followed made her look down and only then did she realize she didn’t have her chains anymore. Her wrists were red and bruised but she was free. Fringilla must have managed to remove them while she was passed out. Revynah looked around her. She was leaning against a wall, sitting on a pile of hay strewn on the floor of a barn. She stood up, gritting her teeth and made her way to the door and stepped outside. Fringilla was nowhere to be seen but that was the least of her concerns. She was probably already gone, and she couldn't blame her. They had never been great friends and dragging her with her in the forest was already more than she could have hoped for.

“Glad to see you’re not dead.” Revynah turned around and stared at the blonde woman standing a few feet away from her. Given her clothes, she was probably one of the peasants living on this farm. She held a bunch of folded clothes against her chest and carried a bucket of water with her. “Come. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

The woman walked past her and for a moment, the sorceress just watched her. Not knowing what to think of this, her first instinct was to doubt her intentions and be wary, but she eventually followed suit andentered a room adjacent to the barn where a washbasin sat in the center. It was filled with water, but the woman poured the content of her bucket in it and put down the clothes on the side. When she was about to leave, Revynah spoke.

“How did I end up in your home?”

“My husband found you lying in the dirt not too deep in the forest. He thought you were dead, but he saw you breathe and brought you here. He said you were repeating a name in your sleep... Cahir, I believe?”

“Thank you.” Revynah nodded with a smile to put an end to the conversation, and she was left alone. She didn’t waste any time and began to undress, her face was contorted with grimaces of pain as she peeled her garment off the wounds in her back. It was soaked with blood, and she let it fall to the side before stepping in the washbasin one foot at a time and she groaned quietly upon sitting in it. The stinging grew worse, and her lips trembled. She quickly rinced her hair, her eyes closed as she took deep breaths to not think of the pain. The water in the bath quickly turned a dark, dirty red color, a mixture of her blood and the filth that covered her body. She stepped out, braiding her hair over her shoulder, unable to take her eyes off how dirty the washbasin had turned. After a few seconds, she grabbed the clothes, tearing apart the shirt before wrapping it around her chest to cover her back and stomach before putting on the modest plain dress she had been given. She looked much cleaner now and joined the woman in the house where she was told the latter’s husband was out in town, having gone to the market and after drinking a soup she had brewed for her, it was time for her to leave. 

Revynah had in mind to go and visit an old friend of her mother's, also a druid and where she would find herbs and plants to concoct something to treat her severe wounds and really get her back on her feet. That she was no longer starving was already a good step forward, but it couldn't completely perk her up. The woman still insisted she leave with a few items, which included pieces of bread and dried meat, along with a horse. She set off and once she was far enough from the farm, she climbed down the horse, leading it with her and took a deep breath, wondering if she was going to successfully open a portal to get closer to where her mother's friend lived. Circling her hand in front of her and chanting a few words and a cloud of light appeared before her. With a smile, she was relieved to see her powers were still there and she stepped in the portals, bringing her exactly where she wanted to be. She could see Anika’s house among the trees in the distance. The druidess was going to have a heart attack upon seeing the girl she knew a century ago being now a grown woman and powerful sorceress, with a past not worth mentioning to her.

[To be continued…]  

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Published (07/04/2023) by Andrea

Taglist: @cathrin2405​ @kika64