A/N: sorry to everyone who saw the first version of this because I forgot to plainpaste. One would think I would have learned by now, but one would be incorrect. Anyway, fixed now.

Cheating the Game

Yennefer struggled through the surf. The baby was unsettlingly quiet, frozen in her arms. Wincing at the pain from the knife that had cracked her shoulder-blade and was even now scraping her ribcage from the inside, she staggered as a low wave wrapped her skirts around her legs, managing somehow to not drop her precious bundle even as she tripped and fell to her knees in the coarse sand.

Her heart hammered in her ears, and her hair obscured her vision and dripped salt into her eyes as she looked down, checking to see if the baby was alright.

It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing. There was blood all over the baby's swaddling, but as she pulled back the blanket, she could see that the baby herself was unmarked.

Then the baby took in a deep, startled breath at the feeling of the cold breeze upon her suddenly exposed sea-damped skin and started bawling, and Yennefer couldn't help but grin. The blood was hers. The baby was safe.

"Do not cry, little one, you are well!" she cooed, reaching forward to stroke the baby's face as she clumsily rewrapped her blanket. Didn't want the little one to catch cold after their impromptu dip in the surf.

What was her name? Yennefer had missed the official birth announcement, too busy entertaining ambassadors from Cintra (oh the irony) to take note.

She supposed that she should be sorry that she had skipped into the field of flowers, leaving Kalis to her fate at the hands of the assassin and his Krallach.

Well. No use thinking of what else she should have done, at the end of her energy and at the end of her patience. Perhaps if Kalis had not accused her of being incompetent, Yennefer would not have given into the spiteful impulse that had her leaving the bitter queen to the assassin's lack of mercy.

Regardless, upon having a moment to catch her breath, and regain her better judgement, she had come back.

In time to save the child, if not the ungrateful mother, and Yennefer told herself that Kalis's shade would have to be content with that.

Blood dripped from her chest, further dirtying the baby's blanket.

Well this wouldn't do.

With a grimace, Yennefer concentrated, and then suddenly the throwing knife was on the ground beside the bawling, squirming princess.

Well, considering her father had paid an assassin to kill her, perhaps former princess was more accurate.

Yennefer fumbled with the sodden string that held one of her inner pockets shut, and then drew out a vial. Not for the first time, she was thankful that she had learned that it was always better to be overprepared, even though she had not expected any trouble escorting Kalis.

Trouble was an understatement for the circumstances she found herself in just now. She yanked the cork from the vial with her teeth, downed the contents, and then tucked the vial back away. She could not hold back a gasp as the pain spiked, and then suddenly receded as the wound healed so that it looked a month old rather than fresh.

She rolled her shoulder slightly and winced at the ache. Not for the first time, she blessed the existence of magic and her good fortune in learning how to use it.

The baby princess was still crying, so Yennefer picked her up, humming under her breath. It had been so long since she had held a child. She had been one herself, the last time, and distantly, she noted that it was easier now, than it had been before with her twisted spine.

She had held all of her half-siblings. Funny, after all these years, she could barely remember their faces. Idly she wondered if her mother was still alive, if she would be able to recognise her unwanted daughter when only her purple eyes were the same.

It hardly mattered. It was not as though Yennefer would ever go back.

(A small part of her thought once that it might be satisfying, to revisit the farm and show them who she had become. The rest of her knew that even if they believed her to be the same Jenny they once scorned, there was nothing they could say that would make up for the fact that they were some of the few people barring Tissaia who knew that she had once been bought for less than the value of a pig.)

The baby slowly settled, the squalling cries subsiding in favour of miserable hiccups.

Yennefer patted the baby's back, rocking her gently.

"Let's get off this shitty beach, shall we..." she considered for a moment, and then her guilty heart whispered the name of the last and perhaps only person to ever offer her unqualified kindness.

"Anica. I will call you Anica," Yennefer decided.

Perhaps it was bad form to give a child the name of someone so ill-fated, but something perverse in Yennefer liked the symmetry of it- an ill-fated name for an ill-fated child.

"Your mother was right about one thing," Yennefer mused, idly drying both of their clothes with a simple spell and then holding tiny Anica close to her breast. "You're a girl, and to the world that means we're just vessels. Even when we're told we're special, as I was, as your namesake was, and as you would have been, we're still just vessels, for them to take, and take, until we're empty and alone."

Anica made a low cooing sound, and Yennefer found herself smiling down at the baby's soft chubby face. "But I promise, little one, I'll take care of you. I'll teach you how to cheat the game."

Because, Yennefer mused to herself as she cradled Anica, other than refusing to play, there was only one sure-fire way to win a rigged game.

Change the rules.