Kevin
Check out the full comic version on my Patreon
Part I: The Silver Brush
The bedroom in Kaer Morhen was thick with the scent of woodsmoke and lilac. A massive fire roared in the stone hearth, casting long, dancing shadows against the heavy tapestry walls. Yennefer of Vengerberg sat perfectly straight before a silver-gilded vanity mirror, clad only in a delicate bodice of black lace.
Down her back cascaded a waterfall of midnight-black hair. It was a marvel of nature and magic, thick, impossibly glossy, and smelling faintly of gooseberries. She held a heavy silver hairbrush, its handle etched with intricate elven runes.
“We need to leave in ten minutes, Geralt,” she called out, her voice a smooth purr of authority. She pulled the silver bristles through the heavy lengths of her hair. The brush glided effortlessly, flattening the raven waves into a sheet of dark silk. “Do not make me wait.”
Heavy, leather-clad footsteps echoed against the stone floor. Geralt walked into the room, his dark armor already strapped and buckled. He paused, his golden, cat-like eyes catching her reflection in the glass. “I am ready,” he rumbled, stepping closer. “Just admiring the view.”
He reached out a calloused, scarred hand. The contrast was stark—his rough, battle-worn fingers against the delicate, magical softness of her hair. He buried his hand in the thick black waves at the crown of her head and pulled downward, a gesture of quiet affection.
But witchers were made for wielding swords, not styling hair.
Near the bottom of the heavy locks, Geralt’s thick fingers caught. He tugged, and the hair looped around his knuckles, instantly knotting into a stubborn, localized bird’s nest.
“Uh oh,” he muttered.
Yennefer’s violet eyes flashed in the mirror. She snapped her head away, pulling the tangled mass from his grip. “Geralt, stop,” she scolded, glaring at the chaotic, frizzy knot he had just created in her otherwise flawless mane. “You ruined it. Now I have to start brushing all over again.”
Geralt held his hands up in immediate surrender, offering a sheepish, lopsided grin. “My rough hands. Sorry, Yen.”
With a heavy, dramatic sigh, Yennefer turned the silver brush around and thrust the handle against his chest. “Fix it. Carefully.”
Geralt stepped behind her. He took the brush, its silver handle warm from her touch. He knew how to be gentle when it mattered. He began at the very bottom of the tangle, gripping the hair just above the knot to ensure he didn’t pull her scalp. With agonizingly slow, rhythmic strokes, he teased the silver bristles through the stubborn snare. Brush, release. Brush, release. Slowly, the knot gave way, the raven strands smoothing out under his deliberate care.
Once the tangle was gone, Geralt set the brush down. His fingers, now moving with practiced caution, divided the heavy mass of black hair into three thick sections. He began to weave them together, crossing the left strand over the middle, then the right. The hair felt cool and heavy, slipping through his fingers like spun silk. He braided it tight, drawing the hair away from her face and down the center of her back, finishing it with a leather tie.
Yennefer inspected the thick, neat braid in the mirror. Her harsh expression softened into a genuine smile. “Not bad, Witcher.”
“I know how to be gentle,” he replied softly.
Part II: The Cost of Gwent
An hour later, the quiet warmth of Kaer Morhen was replaced by the suffocating, smoky din of a tavern in Novigrad.
Geralt sat hunched over a scarred wooden table, staring bleakly at the Gwent cards laid out before him. Across the board sat “The Collector,” a merchant practically spilling out of a ridiculously vibrant purple and teal doublet. Every finger on the man’s hands was adorned with heavy, jewel-encrusted rings.
“Pass,” Geralt grunted.
The Collector chuckled, a wet, unpleasant sound. He slapped his final card down. “My win again, Witcher.”
Geralt scowled, his hand diving into his leather coin purse. He turned it upside down and gave it a shake. A single, pathetic copper piece hit the table. The purse was empty.
“Damn it,” Geralt hissed.
The Collector leaned back, intertwining his ringed fingers over his massive belly. “No coin, no game. I do not play for swords.”
Across the crowded, noisy room, Yennefer sat at a small, candlelit table. She had undone Geralt’s careful braid. Her hair fell over her shoulders in a voluminous, chaotic halo of raven waves, framing her face as she read a thick, leather-bound grimoire.
The Collector caught sight of her. He paused, digging into his coat to produce a small jeweler’s loupe, which he screwed into his right eye. He stared openly at the sorceress.
“Wait… that raven hair,” the merchant whispered, leaning over the table, his breath smelling of sour wine. “The luster is supernatural.”
Geralt’s jaw clenched. “Keep your eyes on the board.”
But the Collector was a man of obsessive wagers. “One round, one pigtail,” he whispered feverishly. “If you win, you get 1,000 crowns. If I win… I take a trophy.”
Geralt looked at the empty table, calculating the risk. A thousand crowns, he thought. I can win this back in one single hand. With a heavy heart and terrible judgment, Geralt approached Yennefer’s table. “Yen. I need a favor.”
She didn’t look up from her grimoire. “What did you do?”
“That merchant has a rare, ancient scroll. Location of a lost laboratory,” Geralt lied smoothly. “He will trade it, but he wants to measure the magical resonance of your hair in a specific style first. Just a trim.”
Yennefer finally looked up, her violet eyes narrowing. “A lost library, you say? Fine. Let us get this over with, as long as it’s just a trim.”
A young, nervous tavern waitress was summoned. She approached Yennefer holding two thick leather hair ties.
“What’s this for? Make it quick,” Yennefer snapped.
“To make the styling easier, ma’am,” the waitress stammered. She quickly parted Yennefer’s heavy hair straight down the middle, exposing the pale skin of her scalp. Working quickly, the girl gathered the massive weight of the hair into two low, thick twintails just behind Yennefer’s ears, tying them off securely. The sheer volume of the hair made the twintails look incredibly thick and heavy.
Yennefer glared at Geralt, who was sweating profusely. “Not a word, Geralt.”
“I’ll be right back,” he promised, practically sprinting back to the Gwent table.
The final hand was laid out. Geralt had a massive siege line. He smiled, victory tasting sweet on his tongue. “I play my siege line. Your move.”
The Collector smirked. He lazily flipped his last card. It depicted a roaring flame. “Scorched Earth.”
Geralt’s eyes widened in sheer horror as his entire army was wiped from the board. “No…”
The tavern abruptly went dead silent as the Collector stood up. “I win,” he announced.
Before Geralt could even draw breath to stop him, the merchant scurried across the room toward Yennefer. From his extravagant coat, he produced a pair of razor-sharp silver shears.
“What are you—” Yennefer began.
The Collector didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the thick left twintail, pulled it taut away from her neck, and slammed the heavy shears shut right at her jawline. The silver blades crunched through the incredibly thick, magical hair with a sickeningly loud SNIP!
Yennefer froze. The Collector bounded away, laughing maniacally, clutching a massive, heavy bundle of black curls in his fist. “A perfect trophy!”
Yennefer stood up slowly. She did not scream. The left side of her head now featured a jagged, violently uneven bob that barely brushed her jaw. The right side remained bound in its heavy, low twintail. The air in the tavern suddenly grew freezing cold. Violent, crackling blue magic began to swirl around her boots.
With a deafening KRAK-THOOM!, a blinding blue portal ripped open in the center of the tavern, shattering every ale glass in the room. Yennefer, her face an expressionless mask of world-ending rage, stepped through and vanished.
Part III: The Fix
Inside a quiet, well-lit safehouse miles away, Triss Merigold and Ciri were enjoying a peaceful cup of chamomile tea.
With a loud VWOOSH, the portal spat Yennefer into the center of the room. Triss dropped her teacup; it shattered against the floorboards. Ciri bolted upright, her hand instinctively flying to the hilt of her sword before she registered who it was. They both stared, utterly paralyzed, at Yennefer’s ruined, lopsided hair.
“Yen!” Ciri gasped. “What happened?!”
Ten minutes later, Yennefer was seated rigidly in a wooden chair, a towel draped over her shoulders. Triss stood behind her, armed with a comb and scissors.
“Don’t worry,” Triss soothed, attempting a comforting smile. “We can fix this. I’ll just level out the long side.”
Triss unbound the remaining twintail. She combed the long hair straight down, pulling it taut between her fingers. Aligning her scissors with the jagged edge of the left side, she began to cut. Snip, snip. Long, heavy sections of beautiful black hair fell away, pooling onto the wooden floorboards in dark, silken waves.
“We can make this a modish bob, Yen!” Triss said brightly, trying to keep the mood light. “It’s very popular in Vizima right now!”
But as Triss combed out the newly cut bob, her smile faltered. She paused, looking closely at the left side where the Collector had taken his prize. She touched the bluntly chopped ends; residual sparks of gray magic popped unhappily against her fingertips.
“Wait a minute…” Triss murmured. She lifted a section of the hair. “Still doesn’t look even, you know. And… oh no. He cut it very short underneath to get the whole tie. If I try to match this side to the shortest layer, a bob will look like a mushroom.”
Yennefer snatched a hand mirror from the table. She stared at herself. The bob was puffy, bulky, and catastrophically uneven. She buried her face in her hands.
“I am going to kill Geralt,” she whispered into her palms. “Slowly.”
Ciri stepped forward, gently prying the scissors from Triss’s hesitant fingers. “No shaving,” Ciri said firmly. “Let me try.”
Ciri met Yennefer’s despondent gaze in the mirror. “The bob makes you look like a librarian, Yen. You’re a lioness.”
Triss summoned a soft, glowing ball of magical light, letting it hover above them to illuminate the workspace. Ciri went to work with the focus of a witcher preparing for a monster hunt.
She began by taking the comb and drawing a clean horseshoe-shaped parting around the crown of Yennefer’s head. Gathering the longer hair on top, Ciri twisted it tightly and secured it out of the way with several metal hair clips.
“I need to separate the top from the back and sides,” Ciri explained, her voice calm and steady.
Ciri moved to the back of Yennefer’s head. She used the fine teeth of the comb to lift the hair at the nape of the neck, pulling it straight out from the scalp. Holding the scissors at an aggressive angle, she began to cut away the bulky weight. Snip, snip, snip. The cold steel of the shears rested directly against Yennefer’s bare skin as Ciri tapered the neckline incredibly short and tight.
She moved to the sides, using the very tips of the scissors to carefully sculpt the hair tightly around Yennefer’s ears, creating a sharp, clean, and aggressive edge.
“Keep your head still,” Ciri commanded softly.
Yennefer felt the cool draft of air hitting her newly exposed neck. “Whoa, how short are you going?”
“Trust me,” Ciri replied. She unclipped the top section, letting the longer hair fall forward over Yennefer’s forehead. Ciri didn’t cut straight across. Instead, she pulled small, vertical sections of the hair straight up between her fingers, pointing the scissors downward to make quick, shallow, angled snips directly into the ends.
“Just taking out the bulk so it lays right,” Ciri muttered, texturizing the heavy top layers so they would move naturally rather than sitting like a helmet.
The floor was an absolute disaster zone. Large, heavy clumps of the ruined bob were mixed with thousands of tiny, shredded clippings from the tight tapering.
Ciri set the tools down. She took a clean, dry towel and gently dusted the itchy, loose hairs away from Yennefer’s bare neck and shoulders. “All done. Have a look.”
Yennefer raised the hand mirror. Her breath caught.
The transformation was striking. The hair was clipped aggressively short and tight on the sides and back, tapering flawlessly into her neck. But the top was left slightly longer and beautifully texturized, allowing the raven hair to fall with a slightly tousled, effortless volume. The severe lack of hair perfectly framed her sharp jawline and high cheekbones, making her piercing violet eyes the absolute focal point of her face. She didn’t look like a victim of a tavern bet; she looked fierce, modern, and incredibly dangerous.
“Oh,” Yennefer breathed.
“Now for the styling,” Triss chimed in, stepping forward with the comb. “Let’s try a middle part.” Triss dragged the comb perfectly down the center of the short crop.
“No,” Ciri vetoed immediately. “That looks like a helmet.”
Triss tried brushing all the top hair straight forward, creating blunt, heavy micro-bangs that sat high above Yennefer’s eyebrows.
“Absolutely not,” Yennefer scowled. “I look like a Nilfgaardian schoolgirl.”
Taking matters into her own hands, Yennefer scooped a dollop of hair wax from a jar on the vanity. She rubbed it vigorously between her palms and pushed both hands through her hair, slicking the entire crop tightly and aggressively back away from her face.
“Very severe,” Triss noted, tilting her head. “It certainly shows off your bone structure.”
“Too stiff,” Ciri argued. “You need movement.”
Ciri took the comb back one last time. She found a natural break on the left side of Yennefer’s head and carved out a deep, sharp side part. She used her fingers to sweep the longer, textured top layers over to the right, letting the waxed locks fall naturally with a slight, piece-y volume.
Yennefer looked in the mirror. A small, genuinely pleased smile graced her lips.
“How about this?” Ciri asked proudly. “A deep side part.”
“Leave it exactly like this,” Yennefer said, running a hand over the short, shaved taper at the back of her neck. “It is perfect.”
Triss pulled the hairpins from her own head, letting her massive mane of red curls cascade heavily down her back. She shook her head playfully. “You know, Yen, if you get bored of the short hair, you could always try big, bouncy curls like mine.”
Ciri barked a laugh. She gathered all of her long, ashen hair into her hands, piling it high on her head into a chaotic top-knot, striking a heroic pose. “Or a warrior’s top-knot! It really keeps the wind out of your face. Do you want me to tie yours up to see how it looks?”
Ciri and Triss suddenly froze. Their smiles vanished as their eyes dropped to Yennefer’s completely bare neck. There wasn’t nearly enough hair left on Yennefer’s head to tie even the smallest of knots.
“Oh. Right,” Ciri winced.
“Oops,” Triss whispered.
Yennefer sat perfectly calm in the chair, meeting their horrified reflections in the mirror with a completely flat, unamused stare. A tiny, dangerous spark of blue magic crackled to life between her index finger and thumb.
“I will set both of you on fire,” Yennefer promised softly.
Ciri leaned toward Triss and whispered, “Worth it.”
Part IV: Contagious Courage
Hours later, the heavy oak door of the safehouse creaked open. Geralt trudged inside, looking thoroughly exhausted and drowning in guilt. In his hand, he clutched a heavy, jingling sack of coins.
“Yen…” Geralt started, his voice rough. “I won the money back.”
Yennefer turned away from the warmth of the fireplace. The flickering orange light danced across the sharp lines of her new, tight pixie cut.
“I know,” Yennefer said smoothly, crossing her arms over her chest. “There was no scroll, Geralt.”
Geralt stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at her exposed neck, the sharp taper of her hair, the textured sweep falling across her forehead. The surprise was evident on his face, but it quickly melted into something much softer. His golden eyes drank her in.
“Your hair…” Geralt murmured, stepping closer. “It looks… dangerous.”
Yennefer’s lips curled into a knowing, triumphant smile. Geralt’s shoulders finally dropped their tension as he smiled back.
“Good,” Yennefer purred. “Because the next time you bet my hair in a tavern, I’ll be using this look to hunt you down.”
The next morning, the safehouse was quiet again. The floor had been swept clean of raven locks, but the chair in the center of the room was occupied once more.
Ciri sat staring into the hand mirror, running her fingers through the heavy, long lengths of her ashen hair. Triss stood behind her, comb in hand, readying the scissors.
“It’s getting quite long, Ciri,” Triss noted. “Just a trim today?”
Ciri stared at her reflection for a long moment, thinking of how fierce and unburdened Yennefer had looked by the fire. “No…” Ciri said slowly. “I’ve been thinking. About Yen’s new look. It’s… practical.”
Triss raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure, Ciri?”
Ciri nodded resolutely, pointing to her shoulder. “Cut it. Short. Like a warrior’s.”
