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Spring;
The season where beautiful things are born.
There was a time when Margarita Laux-Antille wasn’t Rectoress of Aretuza.
There was a time where she was just one of many. Another anonymous soul in the group of scared little girls that inhabited the school.
Just like everyone else she would roam the halls, her books in hand and repeating spells until the pronunciation came to her perfectly. Sometimes she got in trouble for it, because good students had to be seen, not heard.
However, Rita found joy in those words. The way the letters in the elder speech sounded, how they rolled on her tongue, creating intricate melodies and enchantments. Those were the only things that gave her happiness in that moment where she had nothing in her hands.
Nothing but a silver hairbrush with the words; “to Llona from Amaveth” engraved in the handle and her own imagination.
Just like her fellow classmates, she fantasised about balls and royals and how court life would be.
But Rita wasn’t made for politics, her heart was far too soft for worrying about poisoned words and hidden glances. She wasn’t
interested in power, in the sly subterfuges, intrigues of the nobles or in holding power in the shadows in the way other sorceresses did.
No, even if she allowed herself those fantasies she knew Aretuza was her place.
It had been obvious since the moment Tissaia caught her gifting her notes to younger students and giving additional lessons in her dorm at night. Her only instruments being a broken piece of chalk and her voice.
After that, the rectoress took her under her wing, making her help with classes for younger students and even allowed her to be an assistant for older students’ theses.
However, what she didn’t know was that initially, Rita wasn’t doing it for the students.
Rita had seen the eels.
She remembered the suffocating terror that gripped her when she saw the pond, all of those who were once girls that were now just mere animals.
She was terrified that it would happen to other students, to her.
She didn’t sleep for days after that, the only moments of peace came when she helped the other girls.
All because she had been curious. Too curious for her own good.
Summer;
The season where the flowers burn and hearts melt.
The first time Margarita Laux-Antille ever met Yennefer of Vengerberg was at a royal ball.
She had insisted so much to go there that, in the end, Tissaia had to agree.
The ballroom was astounding. Beautiful garlands adorned the walls in a harmony of whites and yellows, and the flowers filled the air with their sweet scent. Above all, guarding the room from his golden throne, sat the King. First sight for every person that entered from the doors, and the most important personality in the room. However, even if extremely important, he was not the most striking one.
Standing tall on the side of the throne chatting with the queen, there was the court advisor. A woman dressed in a tasteful black and white dress with a beautiful golden necklace to adorn her chest, left uncovered by the low neckline.
Even if she was probably an old student, Tissaia didn’t seem enthusiastic about talking to her. She limited the greetings to the usual cheek kissing, which was so important in mage etiquette, and a cold welcome.
Rita on the other hand, Rita was curious. Who was this woman that sparkled such a peculiar reaction in the rectoress? Tissaia had never been a particularly warm person, but this was different.
Luckily the advisor’s interest matched hers. Yennefer of Vengerberg was her name and she was different from anyone Rita had ever met in her life.
There wasn’t a moment during the night where her eyes left Yennefer. Where her body didn’t itch to stay close to her, to discover the secrets hidden behind those violet eyes. Tissaia didn’t notice anything, too caught up in ignoring Yennefer to see them chatting and strolling around the ballroom together.
Rita never saw women like that, she knew some women had those kinds of feelings, but she had never thought herself one of them. She ever only bedded men, or more correctly they had always bedded her, but she found out she didn’t mind if it was a woman that did in the moment Yennefer’s lips crashed against her.
The hot air was filled with the sweet scent of lilac and gooseberries as the other sorceress pushed her against one of the hedges within the beautiful maze in the royal garden.
Hidden from the judging eyes of the guests, she found out that there was nothing more beautiful than kissing Yennefer under the stars of a summer night. Smiling against her skin as her hand hiked up her dress, any thought of the party out of her mind.
Not even the disapproving look she received from Tissaia when she walked back, her hair put back in place as best as she could and her face red, was enough to cancel the sweet bliss of Yennefer’s touches.
Maybe being curious wasn’t as bad as everyone made it out to be.
Autumn;
The season where everything falls and hope shrivels up like leaves.
As the season changed, Rita and Yennefer also changed.
Warm meetings where they would share laughs, a bottle of wine and sometimes even intimate touches left place to a chill in the form of Yennefer’s downfall from Aedirn’s court. It was her consequential escape that broke something between them, leaving only loneliness on its way.
Then, Sodden came, and with it many other things.
Nights together were not so frequent, yet then full of tales of Yennefer’s white-haired witcher, accompanied by their child of surprise. There were no more lingering gazes or kisses of fire, their relationship from hot, like that first summer night, turned lukewarm, more similar to the one of old friends than of lovers.
But still, Rita hoped, she hoped for the witcher to be just a temporary distraction and that Yennefer would realise one day that what they shared was something more than a simple fling.
She held on those hopes, blind to the possibility that it was never what she thought it would be, that she was nothing but a rebound. And still, she could see the death of them in Tissaia, in her pitiful gaze every time Rita looked at Yennefer for too long, her face expressing something more than simple admiration for a fellow sorceress.
Not even in the bathhouse was she able to escape the rectoress’s eyes. Attentive like those of a mother, but severe as
those of a teacher. They unravelled all of Rita’s emotions, leaving her exposed.
Rita had always been curious, and with her curiosity came boldness. Another quality that didn’t make her fit for court life, a dangerous one for mages and lovers alike.
An enchantress always takes action. Wrongly or rightly; that is revealed later. You shouldn’t regret actions or decisions, even if they occasionally end in sadness and regret.
That’s what she had said to Yennefer’s child surprise, a child not so dissimilar from her mother, but oh so painfully similar to her father. Because that was what they were, even if they were the only ones to not see it; Yennefer and Geralt were truly Ciri’s parents. A family bonded by destiny and not by blood.
And, although full of courage, what right did she have to break down someone’s happiness by putting her own words to practice? How could she claim to love Yennefer and then open such a crack in her life?
In the end, as she leaned on the doorframe, waving to them as they departed to attend the gathering, the realization hit her. At the cost of not destroying Yennefer’s life; she had destroyed her own heart.
Winter;
The season of the white frost, where hearts freeze over like rivers and the cold winds swipe away lives.
There was nothing but cold. Emptiness filled the rooms of Montecalvo, just like it filled Rita’s heart. A walking paradox, lost in the halls of the castle and in the silence of winter.
She felt like a ghost. A faded remnant of the woman she once was, kept alive by other people whispering her name, not more real than a folks tale.
Worry surrounded her without actually touching her.
She could see it in the eyes of the other members of the lodge, worried for their future, the future of magic. She could hear it in the whispers of Philippa and Triss, echoing in the air every time they thought she was out of earshot.
However, she couldn’t bring herself to care. For the first time in her life, Rita wasn’t curious.
There was no place for it anyway, just like there was no place for her in the world.
Not without Yennefer in it.
Aretuza was gone, not even Tissaia was there for her anymore. The faces of the students she once loved so much were blurred in her mind, destined to be fogotten.
And for the first time in her life, Margarita Laux-Antille gave up. Just like the world in winter she lost the warmth she had so jealously guarded since that first summer night.
The white frost had come for her too.