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Belleteyn

I was tossed an idea for a picture. "Maybe Gaunter having a kiss with Yen or Triss?" At first I thought it was ridiculous and pointless. Why would he be making out with a sorceress? But then again, why not, if it's Belleteyn! We know how much Master Mirror adores folk festivities, we know that Yen's not averse to taking some pretty young man into the woods on a May night….. So anything can happen!

Here is the Belleteyn scene from Saprowski book to recall the atmosphere...

He chose his path so as to keep away from the light, from the fires' glow, to always stay hidden within the flickering shadows. It was not easy—the area was ablaze with bonfires of fir trunks, tongues of flame leaping skyward in red flares, dotted with sparkles, marking the darkness with brighter sheets of smoke, trunks crackling, shooting flashes, illuminating people dancing everywhere.

Geralt paused to let a frenzied, wild dance, blocking the road and roaring, rush towards him. Someone tugged at his sleeve, trying to thrust a foaming wooden jug into his hand. He gently, but firmly pushed away the swaying man, spilling beer around from the barrel he held under his arm. He did not want to drink.

Not on a night like this.

Nearby, on a platform made of birch trunks rising next to a huge bonfire, the blond May King in a wreath and blue fabric trousers kissed the red-haired May Queen, groping her breasts, protruding through her thin, sweat-soaked linen shirt. The monarch was more than slightly drunk, swaying, trying to keep his balance, embracing the Queen's shoulders, pressing his clenched beer mug hand to her. The Queen, also not quite sober, in a wreath that had slipped over her eyes, hugged the King by the neck and kicked her legs. The crowd danced under the platform, sang, screamed, shook sticks wrapped in greenery and flowers.

"Belleteyn!" a young, not tall girl shouted right into Geralt's ear. Pulling his sleeve, she made him spin in the midst of the surrounding dance. She herself danced next to him, clapping her skirt. Her hair fluttered, full of flowers. He let her lead him in the dance, they twirled, skillfully dodging other pairs.

"Belleteyn! The Night of May!"

Around, commotion, squeaks, nervous laughter, depicting the struggle and resistance of another girl being carried away by a guy into the darkness, beyond the circle of light. The dance, shouting, snaked among the bonfires. Someone stumbled, fell, breaking the chain of hands, dividing people into small groups.

The girl, looking at Geralt from beneath the leaves adorning her forehead, approached, pressed against him, wrapping her arms around, breathing rapidly. He grabbed her roughly, more roughly than he intended. His hands, pressed to her back, felt the hot moisture of her body, penetrating through the thin linen. She lifted her head. Her eyes were closed, teeth gleaming from beneath her raised upper lip. She smelled of sweat and sweet flag, smoke, and desire.

"Why not," he thought, continuing to knead her dress and back, indulging in the moist, soaring warmth on his fingers. The girl was not to his taste—too small, too plump—he felt under his hand the place where the too-tight bodice cut into the body, dividing the back into two clearly distinguishable roundnesses where there should not be any. "Why not," he thought, "for on such a night... It doesn't matter."

Belleteyn... Fires to the very horizon. Belleteyn, the Night of May.

The nearest bonfire crackled, consuming the thrown dry, spread-eagled juniper branches, sprayed bright gold, flooding everything around. The girl lifted her head, opened her eyes, looked at him. He heard her inhale sharply, felt her tense up, how she suddenly pushed with her hands against his chest. He immediately let her go. She swayed, throwing her body to the length of not fully straightened arms but did not detach her hips from his. Then she lowered her head, withdrew her hands, stepped back, looking away.

They stood motionless for a moment, but then the returning dance once again swept over them, divided them. The girl quickly turned away and ran, awkwardly trying to join the dancers. She looked back. Just once.

Belleteyn...

"What am I doing here?"

In the darkness, a star sparkled, blinked, captured his gaze. The medallion on the witcher's neck twitched. Geralt involuntarily widened his pupils, easily piercing the darkness with his gaze.

The woman was not a peasant. Peasants don't wear black velvet cloaks. Peasants, whom men carried or dragged into the bushes, screamed, laughed, flailed, and resisted like trout being pulled from the water. And none of them led tall, blond young men in billowing shirts into the darkness. This one—did.

Village girls never wear neck chokers and obsidian stars studded with diamonds.

"Yennefer..."

Unexpectedly wide violet eyes, burning on a pale triangular face.

"Geralt..."

She let go of the blond cherub's hand, his chest gleaming with sweat like a polished copper plate. The boy swayed, fell to his knees, looked around, blinked. Slowly stood up, looked at them with a lost, bewildered gaze, then with unsteady steps walked towards the bonfires. The sorceress did not even look after him. She stared intently at the witcher, her hand gripping the edge of her cloak tightly.

"Nice to see you again," he said casually. And immediately felt the tension that had arisen between them dissipate.

"Indeed," she smiled. He thought there was something forced in that smile, but he wasn't sure. "Quite a pleasant surprise, I won't deny. What are you doing here, Geralt? Ah... Sorry, excuse my tactlessness. Of course, the same as I. After all, it's Belleteyn. You just caught me, so to speak, at the scene of the crime."

"I interrupted you."

"I'll survive," she laughed. "The night isn't over. If I want, I'll lure another."

"Too bad, I can't do that," he said, with great difficulty pretending indifference. "Just now, one saw my eyes in the light and ran away."

"By dawn," Yennefer said, her smile becoming more and more artificial, "when they're completely crazed, they won't care. You'll find someone else, don't worry..."

"Yen..." His words stuck in his throat. They looked at each other for a long time, very long, as the red reflection of the fire played on their faces. Yennefer suddenly sighed, closing her eyes with her eyelashes.

"No, Geralt. Don't start..."

"It's Belleteyn," he interrupted. "Have you forgotten?"

She slowly approached, placed her hands on his shoulders, slowly and cautiously pressed against him, touched her forehead to his chest. He stroked her raven-wing-colored hair, spilling in curls, as tight as snakes.

"Believe," she whispered, lifting her head. "I wouldn't have hesitated for a moment, if it were only... But it's pointless. Everything will start anew and end the same as before. It's pointless..."

"Does everything have to make sense? It's Belleteyn."

"Belleteyn." She turned away. "So what? Something led us to their fires, to these rejoicing people. We were going to dance, revel, get a little drunk and take advantage of the freedom that reigns here annually, inseparably linked to the festival of the repeating cycle of nature. And please, we meet after... How long has it been... A year?"

"A year, two months, and eighteen days."

"How touching. Did you do it on purpose?"

"Purposely, Yen..."

"Geralt," she interrupted, sharply pulling away and lifting her head. "Let's be clear: I don't want to."

He nodded to show that it was clearly enough said.

Yennefer threw her cloak back. Under the cloak was a very thin white blouse and a black skirt, cinched with a belt of silver links.

"I don't want to," she repeated, "start over. And to do with you what I intended to do with that blond... By the same rules... It, Geralt, seems to me somewhat wrong. Offensive both to you and to me. Understand?"

He nodded again. She looked at him from beneath lowered eyelashes.

"Will you not leave?"

"No."

She was silent for a bit, fidgeting her fingers restlessly.

"Are you upset?"

"No."

"Then let's go sit somewhere away from the noise, talk a little. Because, you see, I am indeed glad to see you. Seriously. Let's sit... Okay?"

"Okay, Yen."

They moved into the darkness, into the heather bushes, to the black wall of the forest, bypassing entwined couples. To find a place just for themselves, they had to go far. A dry hillock, marked by a slender, cypress-like juniper bush.

The sorceress unfastened the brooch of her cloak, shook it, spread it on the ground. He sat next to her. He very much wanted to hug her, but out of stubbornness, he did not. Yennefer adjusted her deeply cut blouse, looked at him piercingly, sighed, and hugged. It was to be expected. Reading minds required her effort, but she involuntarily caught intentions.

They were silent.

"Ah," she suddenly said, moving away. Raised her hand, shouted a spell. Red and green balls flew over their heads, bursting high in the sky. They unfolded into colorful fluffy flowers. Laughter and joyful exclamations reached them from the direction of the bonfires.

"Belleteyn," she said sadly, "The Night of May... The cycle repeats. Let them rejoice... if they can."

There were other sorcerers around. Far away, three orange lightning bolts struck the sky, and from the other side, beyond the forest, a real geyser of rainbow, swirling meteors soared. People at the bonfires loudly and amazedly gasped, shouted. Geralt restrainedly stroked Yennefer's curls, inhaled the scent of lilac and gooseberry. "If I desire her too much," he thought, "she'll feel it and be offended. She'll bristle, bristle and push me away. I'll ask calmly, what's new with her..."

"There's nothing new with me," she said, and something trembled in her voice. "Nothing worth talking about."

"Don't, Yennefer. Don't read me. It's disconcerting."

"Sorry. I unintentionally. And you, Geralt, what's new?"

"Nothing. Nothing worth talking about."

They were silent.

"Belleteyn!" she suddenly grumbled, and he felt how she tensed and the hand pressed to his chest coiled like a spring. "They're celebrating. Celebrating the eternal cycle of nature's renewal. And us? What are we doing here? We, relics, doomed to extinction, to death and oblivion? Nature is reborn, the cycle repeats. But not us, Geralt. We cannot repeat. We were deprived of such an opportunity. We are given the ability to do incredible things with nature, sometimes simply contradicting it. And at the same time, they took away the simplest and most natural, inherent in nature. What good is it that we live longer than them? After our winter, spring will not come, we will not be reborn, what ends, ends with us. But both you and I are drawn to these fires, although our presence here is a malicious and blasphemous mockery of their festival."

He was silent. He did not like when she fell into such a mood, the source of which was too well known to him. "Again," he thought, "it starts to torment her again." There was a time when it seemed she had forgotten, reconciled, like the others. He hugged her, pressed her, gently rocked her like a child. She did not resist. He was not surprised. He knew she needed it.

"You know, Geralt," she suddenly said calmly. "What I missed the most was your silence."

He touched her hair, her ear with his lips. "I want you, Yen," he thought. "I want you, you know that. You know, Yen."

"I know," she whispered.

"Yen..."

She sighed again.

"Just today," she looked at him with wide-open eyes. "Only this night, which will soon end. Let this be our Belleteyn. Tomorrow we will part. Please, don't count on more, I can't, I couldn't... Sorry. If I hurt you, kiss me and leave."

"If I kiss you—I won't leave."

"I was hoping for that."

She bowed her head. He touched her open lips with his. Carefully. First the upper, then the lower. Entwining his fingers in the tight curls, touched her ear, the diamond earring, her neck. Yennefer, returning the kiss, pressed against him, and her nimble fingers quickly and confidently dealt with the fastenings of his jacket.

She leaned back on the cloak, spread out on the soft moss. He pressed his lips to her breast, felt the nipples harden and delineate under the thin fabric of the blouse. She breathed raggedly.

"Yen..."

"Silence... Please..."

The touch of her smooth cold skin, electrifying fingers and palm. A shiver down his spine, into which her nails dug. From the direction of the bonfires, screams, singing, whistling, distant mist of sparks in purple smoke. Caress and touch. Hers. His. Trembling. And impatience. The smooth touch of her thighs, encircling him, clamping like a lock.

Belleteyn!

Breath torn into sighs. Flashes under the eyelids, the scent of lilac and gooseberry. The May Queen and May King? A blasphemous mockery? Forgetfulness?

Belleteyn! The Night of May!

A moan. Hers? His? Black curls on the eyes, on the lips. Entwined fingers of trembling hands. A scream. Hers? Black eyelashes. Wet. A moan. His?

Silence. Eternity in silence.

Belleteyn... Fires to the very horizon...

"Yen?"

"Ah, Geralt..."

"Yen... Are you crying?"

"No!"

"Yen..."

"I promised myself... I promised..."

"Silence. No need. Are you cold?"

"Cold."

"And now?"

"Warmer."

The sky brightened at an alarming rate, the black wall of the forest sharpened its contours, a clear serrated line of treetops peeked out from the shapeless darkness. The blue harbinger of dawn spread along the horizon, extinguishing the lamps of the stars. It became colder. He hugged her tighter, covered her with his cloak.

"Geralt?"

"Hmm?"

"Dawn is coming."

"I know."

"Did I hurt you?"

"A little."

"Will everything start over?"

"It never ended."

"Please... I'm beginning to feel..."

"Silence. Everything is fine."

The smell of smoke, drifting over the heather. The scent of lilac and gooseberry.

"Geralt?"

"Yes?"

"Do you remember our meeting in the Pustule Mountains? And that golden dragon... What was his name?"

"Three Jackdaws. I remember."

"He told us..."

"I remember, Yen."

She kissed him at the spot where the neck meets the collarbone, then laid her head there, tickling him with her hair.

"We are made for each other," she whispered. "Maybe meant to be? But it won't work out. It's a pity, but when dawn breaks, we will part. It can't be otherwise. We must part, so as not to hurt each other. We, meant for each other. Created for each other. It's a pity. Those who created us should have cared about something more. Destiny alone is not enough, it's too little. Something more is necessary. Forgive me. I had to tell you this."

"I know."

"I knew there was no sense in loving each other."

"You're wrong. There was. Despite everything."

"Go to Cintra, Geralt."

"What?"

"Go to Cintra. Go there and this time don't refuse. Don't do what you did then... When you were there..."

"How do you know?"

"I know everything about you. Remember? Go to Cintra, go there as soon as possible. Hard times are coming, Geralt. Very hard. You must make it in time..."

"Yen..."

"Silence, please."

Getting colder. Colder and lighter.

"Don't leave. Let's wait for the morning..."

"We'll wait."

#Belleteyn

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