Medieval Europe, 16th century.

A gray weekday, the smell of damp and moss lingers, and flakes of dissipating fog occasionally tickle the hairs in your nose as you walk.

The sounds of clucking hens and a rooster's crow can be heard nearby. Not exactly a farm, just an ordinary farmhouse with its own farmstead. It was early morning, time to feed the cattle. A couple of teenagers were hanging around the hayloft, circling the grounds, and finally arriving at the porch of a barn. The whims and reproachful complaints of a young blonde could be heard from her suitor. Poor guy, he couldn't bring her roses, so he picked ordinary wildflowers—daisies—before their date. And where would he have found roses in these parts? In this region, due to the weather, even corn was rare, let alone fine flowers.

Daisies were rejected by the lady and dismissively tossed aside, ending up in the pigsty's territory. Despite her pickiness, the fastidious girl nevertheless allowed her suitor to kiss her. However, a minute or two later, her gaze darted to the side where her cheap daisy basket had landed.

"Where are the flowers?!" blondie muttered suspiciously, pulling away from her boyfriend's wet kisses.

"You didn't like them anyway," young man replied, following her, clinging to her sleeve, eager to resume their kisses, but girl decided to check if she had tossed the flowers a little further than the barn threshold.

To her surprise, blonde saw her: an odd peasant girl, like their age. Yes, she was the ugliest creature of this village: a shabby dress stained from life on the farm, a crooked jaw, as if she were holding a wine cork in her cheek, and, most importantly, a hunchback that had deformed her spine so that her left shoulder was higher than the other, practically pressed against her neck, almost always remaining in this unnatural position. Yennefer, or Yanka, as they called her. The local farmer's eldest daughter, the one charged with rising early in the morning and feeding the pigs by slop, pouring it into troughs, and cutting pumpkins to feed the cows. The hunchback girl glanced at the blonde with embarrassment but curiosity, nervously licked her lower lip, and hesitantly raised her hand, indicating that she wanted to give her the daisies she'd found in the barn.

Mistake. Big mistake. It was obvious that Yennefer had picked up those flowers because she'd been watching the teenagers kissing, leaning against the barn walls. Disgusting and pathetic. And those wretched wildflowers, rejected by the beautiful blondie and meaningless to her, meant more to Yennefer, even if they were just cheap daisies that grew like weeds on every patch of grass. Like, Yennefer could imagine – what it would be like to receive flowers. But realizing she'd taken someone else's and had been caught peeping, Yennefer held out the flowers as if returning them to their owner, standing there, waiting. Who were these young people? New acquaintances? Children whose parents had sent them to her stepfather to buy pork and eggs?

— "Nah!" blondie scoffed, returning to her capricious behavior, slapping Yennefer's outstretched hand. "Now they stink of pig shit!" She said, looking at the flowers she'd knocked over. The hunchbacked girl's face contorted with surprise, and not a trace of her curious and peaceful demeanor remained. Yennefer barely had time to look up at the blondie before the couple had her pinned to the floor of the barn, tugging her hair, tearing her collar, leaving scratches and bruises, shouting at her, "We're teaching you a lesson about taking what wasn't asked for," "You'll regret this," "Do you know why that ugly was peeking!? She knew no one would ever kiss her!" "You pathetic, horrible nothing, even your parents don't love you, to have kicked you out to sleep with the pigs in the barn!" — "Leave me alone!" The hunchback cried out, unable to resist the two attackers, trying to cover her head with her arms. In response, she received another round of punches and kicks to the stomach and chest, accompanied by the couple's hearty laughter.