Where did she go wrong?

Fringilla tried. She did, she promises. Every day, she tried to reach out to the other girls, to smile and laugh right alongside them and yet, it felt so empty. Her entire life, she had been raised to be the best. It was simply expected of her. With her uncle on the mages’ council it was no surprise when she had a conduit and most of the her family instead of congratulating her asked why it took so long. 

There was never any need to put pressure on her to study more, to be the top of her class because she placed all that pressure on herself. If she wasn’t the best then she was wasting Aretuza’s time and she would never do that. Not when it had been drilled into her since she was a child that this was the only path for her. She had to listen to the Rectoress, learn the lessons, go to court, and spend her life serving the brotherhood like a good little mage should.  

If she didn't, well, Fringilla remembered the stories of mages who ventured into forbidden magic, who broke off from the brotherhood and cannibalized their own magic, dying penniless in the streets. 

But no matter how much work she put in, no matter how hard she tried, none of the other girls wanted to be close with her. At first, she thought Sabrina might be a good choice for a friend. They were both two of the only mages who could accomplish every task Tissaia set out before them and Fringilla thought she could appreciate Sabrina’s straight-forward approach to life. 

What Fringilla hadn’t anticipated was Sabrina’s haughtiness. She thought that she deserved the world and if it wasn’t placed at her feet, that was the world’s fault, not her own. Of course, Sabrina was never dissuaded otherwise so when Fringilla was with Sabrina, most conversation would be taken up by talking about what girls wouldn’t last, who would be the first to leave, etc. 

It was conversation Fringilla partook in for the necessity of a friend but otherwise felt no connection too. She tried to talk to Yennefer, but the other girl didn’t seem interested in talking to her, seemingly too interested in her studies and sneaking off all hours of the night to gods knows where.  

She didn’t ask where or tell Tissaia because, well, they all needed an escape. Anica was close with Yennefer and when Fringilla tried to talk to Lark and Doralis they were friendly. However, one night Lark, Anica, and Doralis disappeared and never came back. Tissaia said they were sent back to their families and it left a pit in Fringilla’s stomach. She remembered the stories of cannibalized magic and tried not to think on where the girls truly were. 

Her time in Aretuza was one of misery and isolation and she should have known from the second, the goddamn second that Tissaia told her she would have to suffer with a withered hand due to her incident the first day that she would find no home here. 

Fringilla’s entire life had felt so empty, so hollow. Everything was simply a ploy for the next level. Her childhood existed simply to get her to Aretuza which existed to simply get her to court. Connections she tried to make didn’t matter and anyone she tried to talk to didn’t care. 

Then, after the mage’s ball, sitting alone in her room, changing into the dress set out by King Fergus, tears rolling down her face, Fringilla realized. Her whole life was a facade. Even now, in her moment go utmost horror, in her realization that her skill level would never matter because she was destined to be discarded to shithole that was Nilfgaard, not a single person came to visit or comfort her. 

Not Sabrina, not her uncle and certainly not Tissaia. She was just as alone as she had been her whole life but this loneliness felt more painful that anything she had felt before. This felt like an ache in her bones and a scream in her chest that she couldn’t let out. 

Where did she go wrong? 

What could she have done differently to be loved?

She just wanted a home, a place to belong. 

Fringilla certainly wasn’t going to find it here. 

Fringilla’s Tragic Backstory

If we can talk about the tragic backstory for the villain of every piece of media I’m going to do it for Fringilla too. Because this woman has been THROUGH IT. 

For @muslimyennefer​, fellow Fringilla fan

TLDR: Fringilla has a classic corruption arc, comparable to the likes of Eve Polastri, Will Graham, Anakin Skywalker and Morgana Pendragon. She starts out quiet and caring and ends hardened and many might say cruel. Her treatment at Aretuza was terrible and definitely ties into her decision to cut off all ties and fully commit herself to Nilfgaard.

The first time Yennefer fell in love, it was over a late night of studying. Candles were lit in one of the many greenhouses of Aretuza and Anica leaned over one of the plants at such an angle that the candlelight seemed to cast her features in shadow, making her seem almost painted and unfocused in the dim lighting. 

She looked up at Yennefer, a small smile on her face as she asked her a question about the plant she was holding, chaos dancing at her fingers. Yennefer’s breath caught as she was unable to hear the sentence, too focused on looking into Anica’s eyes. It wasn’t until Yennefer’s eyes drifted down to Anica’s lips and she began moving forward that she realized what she was doing. 

With a small gasp, she pulled back quickly and excused herself to her chambers, confused and unsure. She didn’t know what love was at the time. It was not as though her parents had taught it to her, wasn’t as though Tissaia would ever talk to her about romance among sorceresses. 

Throughout the night, Yennefer traced her lips, imagining a phantom pair settling over hers. Every time she closed her eyes she thought of Anica’s eyes, illuminated by firelight, her lips slightly parted. 

She never told Anica, never got the chance too. Maybe one day when they were both in court she could have confessed, could have told her under the excuse of one-too-many bottles of wine. It was a future that could never be. Long after Tissaia had left the cavern, eels still swimming in the water, Yennefer had sat there, hand in the water, trying in some desperate attempt to beckon Anica, or what had once been Anica towards her. 

Yennefer visited that cavern every night for weeks, she hardly slept. Somehow, she felt like her vigil with the eels would be some sort of reminder that they were once human, that they were once her friends. Once, she thought about talking to Anica the eel, just in case she could somehow understand her, telling her how she once felt and hoping in vain Anica might answer back in some way.  However, when Yennefer looked down all she saw was the same slimy yellowed eels and she realized that sometime in the past week she had lost track of which one was Anica. 

They all looked the same. Yennefer found herself looking down in horror at the hundreds of identical yellow eels, feeling a growing sense of horror at their uniformity. Every one of these had once been a young girl with a future, with lovers, with friends and now they were a mindless mass of magic. What did Tissaia tell the parents, Yennefer wondered, what lies did she spin? 

She left, unable to stomach another minute. For the rest of her time at Aretuza, she didn’t go back. In the privacy of her own mind, Yennefer desperately prayed the girls weren’t aware. If Anica was aware and trapped in the flesh of an eel, unable to talk, to express, to be human...Yennefer felt a few tears of frustration come out of her eyes. Yes, it was better to imagine none of them were aware anymore. 

The first time Yennefer fell in love it was like this: soft and slow, built over late nights and the first real friend she ever had. 

The first time Yennefer felt heartbreak it was like this: sudden and painful, traumatizing and horrifying and brought on by a woman far more powerful than her. 

It was like this: broken and splintered, filled with words never said that never could be said because her choice had been cruelly ripped from her grasp. 

No, I don’t take constructive criticism