Paradise

Author's Note: This story makes references to both the books and TW3. It is also a follow-up to my story 'Family', and it loosely references events from some of my other fics. If you are familiar with my writing, go ahead and skip right to the story (just beware of Bridezilla). If you would like some context without having to read my other fics, here it is:

Context 1 (from 'Family'): With a lot of help from Ciri, Geralt and Yennefer are engaged - though Geralt flubbed his proposal pretty hard; his speech regrettably started with the word 'Gwent'. (Also, we don't like Fringilla.)

Context 2 (from 'Reinvent'): Triss and Yennefer have buried the hatchet and are reconnected. Triss is with Eskel and, with Yennefer's support, has redirected the efforts of the Lodge and its members to reopening and revamping Aretuza; she, Margarita, Keira, and Philippa are faculty members there. (And we still don't like Fringilla.)

Context 3 (from 'Drawing'): Yennefer and Geralt like looking at stars together. Geralt sucks at drawing. Yennefer loves him anyway/because of it/both.

Context 4 (from the epilogue of 'Family'): Ciri alludes to a fluid sexuality. Yennefer ponders a black wedding dress.

...Without further ado...

Yennefer was very, very irritated. She was not the nervous one in their relationship, damn it. No, she was always the one who would help Geralt straighten out his thoughts when his mind was in a knot, was always the one who would turn his anxieties into well-laid logic, and was always the one who would impart shrewd advice when he felt out of his depths. She was the calm, cool, collected one. Always.

So why the hell was it, now, that he was so damn sanguine about this whole blasted wedding business while she felt as if she were running around with her hair lit afire?

And just where in the endless kingdom of the feckless goddess Melitele is Ciri? she screamed in her mind.

Yennefer had had complete confidence in herself as an expert strategist and planner – specializing in any form of undertaking ranging from politics to parties. She had experience as the mastermind behind victorious battles, legendary spells, and unforgettable soirees, and her services had often been called upon by the highest in courts and society alike before she'd decided to retire.

Yet when it came to her own wedding, her mind ran blank. Utterly, uselessly blank. She had been able to come up with a grand total of zero ideas on how to even start planning for the occasion, and her worthlessness on the matter was crushing for a woman of such pride. It threw her into a frenzy of foot-stomping, door-slamming, majordomo-at yelling, Geralt-stress fucking madness.

She hated it. Well, perhaps not the stress fucking part, but the overall asininity of her ineptitude on something that should have come so naturally to her – it was nearly unbearable.

She had finally admitted to herself two weeks ago, in a deeply drunk and morose state, that she could not do this on her own. And yet, without Ciri, and with Barnabas-Basil fearfully avoiding even the slightest hint of her shadow after all of her outbursts, she had nobody to turn to for help but Geralt.

Bloody Geralt – who would sagely respond to her crippling anxieties with some maddening version of, "It will all work itself out."

NO IT BLOODY WON'T!

She felt as if she were losing her mind.

So when Ciri finally arrived at their estate that afternoon, weeks, weeks after she had been summoned by her slowly unraveling mother, Yennefer wasted no time in ripping her daughter off of her stupid little horse and dragging her bewildered backside straight into the sitting room, where Yennefer had laid out mountainous piles of parchment in preparation for the avalanche of ideas that never came.

"Mother, slow down! Where are we g- Ow! Moth- Hi, Geralt. Hi, BB. Mother! What are-"

"Sit!" Yennefer commanded in her single-most fearsome voice, and Ciri dropped into a chair as if her bottom were suddenly made of very heavy stones. Yennefer was vaguely aware of Geralt muttering, "Uh oh," and shuffling himself out of the house with Barnabas-Basil. Ciri's whimper suggested she would have given up nothing short of her left arm to be with them right then, but Yennefer fixed her firmly in place with what she knew to be a petrifying glare.

"Where have you been?" she demanded, enunciating each word with punctuated furor.

Ciri recoiled, looking as if she couldn't decide whether to answer her mother fully or to crawl into a hole and never come out again.

"Where, Cirilla!" It was no longer a question. Now Yennefer just wanted Ciri to know how insane she felt.

"Mother, are you alright?" Ciri squeaked out in a tiny voice that betrayed both paralyzing fear as well as genuine concern. It disarmed Yennefer ever so slightly.

"No, and you were the only one who could have helped," Yennefer vented with a hint more of the despair that had been dogging her.

Ciri still looked unsure as to whether she was allowed to breathe ever again, but she bravely reached a tentative hand to her mother's. Yennefer did not brush off the gesture, which apparently emboldened Ciri to speak a little more freely.

"Are… Is this about the wedding?"

"No, it's about the state of unrest in the struggle for dominance amongst Skellige's mountain troll species. Yes, it's about the bloody wedding! Ciri, what took you so long?"

Ciri appeared to have suppressed a blush as well as a straight answer when she responded, "I'm here now. What can I help with?"

Yennefer sighed for what seemed like an eternity. She shut her eyes and brought her fingers to the bridge of her nose, trying but failing to dispel the frustrations of her failures. "I don't know."

"Alright, then… What have you decided on so far?"

"I don't know."

"…Will you at least still wear a black dress?"

"I don't know."