Witcher Femslash February - Beauty

It used to be a favorite topic of idle conversation amongst the adepts of Aretuza, speculating about what they’d look like once their enchantments were complete. Yennefer has fond memories of those old flights of fancy—how Anica insisted she would be ten feet tall so she could stomp on anyone who dared to defy her, or how Doralis cried once, because she wished her faded copper hair was a rich, deep red, and they all made fun of her for weeks. They were the daydreams of children who knew nothing of the world.

Now that their initiation is finally close at hand, Yennefer finds that all those daydreams amount to nothing. She tries to imagine what will be and finds only anger for what is. All she longs for, it seems, is the absence of things she has always known—no more clothes that aren’t made to fit her, no more ache in the curve of her spine at night, no pitying looks or people who speak to her in slow, loud voices, as if she can’t comprehend their condescension. But can that really be all this transformation has to offer her? Doesn’t she want more than not this? Doesn’t she want everything?

But the trouble with everything is that it fails to appear in her mind’s eye.

“Do you know?” Yennefer asks Fringilla one night. They’re in the gardens, collecting moonflowers for a tincture.

Fringilla looks surprised. “Of course.”

“Well?”

“I’m …” Fringilla bends to cut one of the white blossoms with her little silver knife, her thick curls falling to obscure her face.

“Or maybe you don’t know, after all,” Yennefer scoffs, unable to help herself.

“I want to be fearless,” Fringilla says at last. “Someone who carries a fire inside her. Someone who fights for what she wants.”

Yennefer wrinkles her nose. “None of that is about how you look.”

“Isn’t it?” Fringilla cuts another flower from its stem, all her attention fixed carefully on the working of her knife. “I can see just what she looks like now.”