Chapter Text
Winter was a harsh mistress. Or was it Summer?
Both wouldn’t have mattered to Venzlav, a traveling merchant who had his knees plugged with prickling snow in a cruel, barren land. He had been on the road for more than five hours and he should’ve seen the Inn by now. But Winter was a harsh mistress, and she wouldn’t let him. Still, he held his tongue and the vicious venom rimming around the tip, almost faithfully.
It wouldn’t have mattered.
For the land was already cursed, condemned, and abandoned by every God and Goddess there ever was. No. Venzlav wasn’t going to complain, he shall remain grateful that it was merely snow cutting through his skin and skull, and not something else.
Something far, far worse.
While Venzlav was suffering, his destination stood unbothered half a mile ahead of him. Dark and sturdy wood beneath a thick layer of silvering snow, hidden away without meaning to. The only tell-tale sign was a faint line of smoke coming out of a damp chimney, courtesy of the most skillful cook this land had ever seen, Venimira.
Venimira was a small woman. Small as in the figure, not in mind nor strength, a few had made the mistakes of jest, and soon they found themselves talking gibberish in a pigpen. She had always known she was going to become a chef, not a cook, but a chef. So when a man named Klose told her to scrub the floor and wash the clothes for him for the rest of her life, she picked a burning wood from the fireplace and struck his head with it.
Venimira was born to be the best chef this land had ever seen.
The jarring sound of the door being open seized her attention. Venimira turned, the tip of her single long braid swaying with her hips. As the shadow gradually manifested in front of her into a man of middle build, Venimira found herself getting nervous. She glanced at the stems and roots of various flowers and spices hanging upside down on a covert beam, silently hoping the new pack would survive this visit.
“Welcome to the Fisher King Inn!”
Venimira said in a soprano tone, trying to channel the natural brightness her voice possessed.
“Uh-hum.” Came the raucous respond.
The middle-build man was carrying a large sack with worn-out edges peaking out from behind his broad shoulders. Venimira sighed. It was just a traveling merchant.
But she didn’t let her guard down. Not yet. The man padded off the snow and rubbed his shoes on the doormat before sitting down at the closest table to the door and asked for something warm.
“Here you go.”
Venimira ladled out a large bowl of stew she was cooking on the stove and put it in front of the man, along with a bottle of red wine she stashed underneath the counter table.
“I didn’t order this.”
The man stared at the bottle and then at Venimira with his light blue eyes. Light blue eyes that reminded Venimira of the sea she never got to see but dreamed of when she was a child. But a child she was no more, and she didn’t blame the man for sounding so skeptical.
“I know. But you look like you could need a glass, no?”
She gave the bottle a good swirl and popped open the wooden cork.
“One glass then.”
The man nodded. He kept on staring when Venimira poured him a glass, his mildly bearded throat bobbed.
“Thank you.”
The man gingerly replied.
Venimira flashed a smile and went back to tending the stove.
Half an hour went by with neither of them said anything. Venimira kept a close eye on the man while roaming and cleaning around. She wanted to ask him about the soup, about whether he liked it or not. She had confidence about her cooking, but for some reason the question mattered a little more to her this time.
“Is this Langston?” The man asked suddenly, chewing the last potatoes in his bowl.
This had Venimira whipped around and almost lost her balance. Almost.
“No. Langston is about ten miles away in that direction.”
Venimira nodded her head towards the murky window. She clutched the cleaning cloth in her hands. She could take him, she knew. And she wasn’t scared, not entirely. Still, she clutched her hands.
“Oh, I thought...well, where is this, then?”
The man had a confused look on his face. When he looked up, Venimira felt a strange flutter in her stomach, whether it was the genuineness in his eyes or the flicker of reflected fire dancing in them, she wasn’t sure.
“Vengerberg. This is Vengerberg, good sir.”
The man stopped mid-drinking, his wrinkled fingers pinching the body of the glass, Venimira wondered for a second if they were also full of calluses.
“Ve...Vengerberg?”
Venimira noticed the tremor in his voice, she knew better than to act like she did.
“Yes. Vengerberg. The Capital of Aedirn.”
“This is Aedirn?”
“Yes, why?”
“...nothing.”
The man put down his wine slowly, though with much force than he intended to, Venimira could tell by the slight startled stretch of his eyelids. He buried his face into both palms and stayed like that for a while. Just when Venimira was about to go and check on him, she heard a strange sound coming from the man’s obscured face.
A sniff. Then a sob.
The man was crying.
Venimira had never met a man who would cry in front of a woman.
She came up to him, held him in her arms like a mother would a child, and wept with him. His rusty hair found its place under the collar of her linen dress.
“There, there.”
Venimira didn’t ask. Not when he cried in her arms. Not when he stopped crying and she went back to the Innkeeper business. Not when he laid himself on top of her that night or woke up beside her on the mattress the next morning.
She didn’t have to.
She already knew.
She had seen too many things being done to this land to understand.
“You should get it checked out.”
Venimira watched as Venzlav put on his shirt and pants. She herself didn’t move from her position on the mattress.
“What, this?”
Venzlav turned towards Venimira who was looking at his feet, his toes were the color of a dead fish.
“Yes. You might have a frostbite.”
“The time of the white frost was long gone, my dear.”
“And here I thought not all Skelligans were superstitious.”
“I’m only half Skelligan.”
“Well, that explains the height then.”
“You say that so I will stay longer to prove that height doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe. What if I am?”
“A good Skelligan man would never take advantage of a lady.”
“You’re only half Skelligan.”
“Exactly.”
Venimira laughed as Venzlav plunged at her like a brown bear, spreading his arms. She was still going to advise him to go see a healer, but that could wait, just a while longer.
Maybe he could chance his luck at Lady Yennefer’s.
“Lady Yennefer?”
Venzlav wiped away the snow on the window of the shabby little house and looked inside. He was sure he found the right place. Venimira even drew him a map for it.
The thought of the woman made a smile appear on his face, he touched the small rosemary plant Venimira strapped onto his belt before he left.
“Lady Yennefer?” He knocked on the window.
Venzlav tried his luck one more time. When there were no responses still, he curled his lips and left the little hut.
Maybe Venimira was wrong.
Maybe Lady Yennefer didn’t live here anymore.
A sparrow landed on the windowsill after Venzlav set on his journey to the west. The same window that Venzlav cleaned with his calluses hands.
The sparrow settled on the sill and balled herself up, her little claws tucked under her belly. She cleaned her greyish feathers with her beak, working the knotted threads apart bit by bit.
She didn’t have to worry about being hunted. Not here. Not on this sill.
It’s not her first time resting here. She had been coming here for the past two winters and one summer. From when she was a baby bird who had just learned how to fly to now a fully-grown sparrow.
She liked this sill. It was always clean. Waxed and polished wood felt like the surface of a hidden lake under her claws. Sometimes the window would be left open. Just a small crack. But a crack enough for her to smell the lilac and gooseberry within.
Not to mention the breadcrumbs. Yes. The occasional but steady breadcrumbs. She was sure it was meant for her. Although she never saw the person who left the treats but she knew it was a woman. A very beautiful woman.
There were no breadcrumbs today, though.
Or for the past whole month.
The sparrow halted her motion. Her ears picked up on an unusual sound.
Click.
Maybe the woman saw her.
Click.
But what’s that smell?
Click.
Certainly not Lilac nor Gooseberry.
The sparrow opened her beak to scream, to warn the woman who would leave her breadcrumbs on the clean windowsill, who always smelled like lilac and gooseberry.
She was too late.
An iron armor-covered hand swallowed her whole.
This was not the woman who left her breadcrumbs.
The hand squeezed.
This was something far, far worse.