Jaskier is awoken in the far too early morning by Mystery Kid tripping over her feet (in the boots he just paid for) on her way to sneak out. That's gratitude for you. He rolls over to see her looking back toward him and then yanking her hand away from the door. They stare at each other.

"I wasn't," Mystery Kid claims at last.

He sits up. "Afraid it's a bit early for breakfast."

"I wasn't!"

"Right, yeah," he tries. "We'll have breakfast in a bit, alright? In the meantime - " She flinches. Isn't she going to get tired of that? Surely being terrified at every sound he makes has to be at least as exhausting on her end as his. At least she's managing to look at him now. He tries again, "So, Adga says you're from all the way over in Aedirn? That must've been an interesting trip."

Silence.

"I've traveled all over, myself," Jaskier continues, sitting up on the bed. "Might've passed through your home village at some point." He considers saying that he thinks he'd remember her, if he did, but under the circumstances that seems less like a bit of friendly flattery and more tactless. Besides, she's even scared of his lute, she'd probably refused to go out with her family any time there was bard playing and just stayed in the house. "Wherever that is," he adds, more pointedly.

"Gulet," the girl says abruptly. "I'm. I'm from Gulet."

Wonderful! "Gulet," he repeats enthusiastically. "Yes, I've been there." A much busier place than he can picture her in, but perhaps she lived on the very outskirts. Then, because he needs to address the topic somehow, "Quite a long way from there, aren't we?" She doesn't respond. "Long way, even as the crow flies. And the Mahakam mountain range," he adds as meaningfully as he can. Mystery Kid couldn't manage to walk over some planks to get out the door without stumbling. She'll never be climbing up and down even modest mountains. "You know, the mountain range between us and Aedirn. Have to go around all that first."

Gulet, Gulet... Lot of smithing there. Dwarves, too. He wonders if maybe dwarves haven't done anything to get on her evidently extensive shitlist, if maybe she'd be willing to say more than three words at a time to one. No, he can't see that. Dwarves can get loud and this girl, clearly, is the sort who prefers a life of whispers.

"Gulet," he says again. "Must be pretty busy there these days. Good place to visit again, hm? I imagine the demand for swords and daggers and all sorts of things has just skyrocketed, am I right? Real boon to the local economy." Which he supposes could be what her family was doing all the way over. "I don't think there's any weapons stock left unsold around here... They needed everything. Didn't even have enough fletching for their arrows, I heard." The girl continues to not participate in conversation. Which, well, he's pretty good at holding an entire conversation himself, if he must, but he actually needs to know some things here. "Your parents must be headed back, then. Is there anywhere you know they'll stop along the way? Or maybe they made plans about where people could meet back up, if they got separated?"

"They're not here," Mystery Kid says, which... Adga knew what she was talking about, it seems.

"They're not," Jaskier agrees. "Do you know where -"

"They're at home," Mystery Kid continues, starting to sound panicked. "I should be at home. I was - is this really Sodden?"

What's left of it, he almost says, but she's clearly got enough difficulty with what's going on without getting into the whole Nilfgaard disaster. "Right across the Yaruga river," he goes with.

"I was in the barn," she says, looking down so her floorboard audience can hear her better. "My father's barn. At home. I was there and - and then I was in woods. I thought I. That I hadn't remembered going."

"You mean, in Gulet?" he asks.

She nods.

"And you thought you... Has that happened to you? Not remembering?" Just stripping naked and running off into the forest? Just how much is wrong with this kid?

"Yes," she admits in a whisper.

"A lot?"

"J - just once. I... I thought... They -" She shakes her head. "B - but how can I be in another country? That's d - days."

He supposes that's an accurate statement if you consider that weeks do contain days. "Yeah," he says. "So, I would say then it must have been magic." That would explain everything, wouldn't it? Magic.

"Why would someone do that to me?" the girl asks, her voice cracking. She shakes and starts to sob.

"Hey, hey, no no -" Jaskier babbles, hopping out of bed. He pats her on the straighter shoulder - the other one is so twisted it hurts a little just to look at, and he's worried touching her could dislocate a joint or something. "I'm sure it was an accident. Nothing to do with you. There was a huge fight with a lot of mages and a lot of magic here. All that chaos being thrown around, it could've done all sorts of things. Just bad luck on your part, getting dragged into it, I'm sure. Just bad luck. Okay?" She quiets down, still sniffling a little. "Now, the sorceresses who are left are all rather occupied at the moment, but if we give them a few days, I'm sure I could convince them to take a look at you and -"

"No!" the girl yelps.

"I'm no fan of sorceresses either," he says, "I understand, completely understand wanting nothing to do with them - I want nothing to do with them - but -"

"I don't want to!"

"- they are dismayingly useful and if we can prove what happened to you is their fault -"

"I won't!"

"Alright, alright," Jaskier says quickly. "Right, you're right, no need to bother the scary witches, definitely not doing that, bad idea, you're right. We'll deal with this like regular human beings do, okay? No terrifying magic ladies and their terrifying portals." He waits to see if she'll calm down again. When it seems like she has, he continues, "Now, I'm a bard -"

"I know," she interrupts. Well, Mystery Kid hadn't had any reaction to being told she was in the company of the famous bard Jaskier the other five times he told her, so forgive him if he wasn't sure she was listening.

"Good," he goes with. "Well. I do quite a lot of traveling, and with the whole Nilfgaard affair as it is, I'm heading north myself." Is this too subtle? It's probably too subtle, yeah. "I'll take you with me and we'll travel up and over to Aedirn, drop you back off at your farm." This doesn't produce even more crying, at least. "Okay?" he prompts.

She nods. After a moment, "Okay."

Jaskier gives her his very most charming smile. "Wonderful. I'm sure we'll have a fun time of it. As I said, I'm Jaskier, also known as Julian Alfred Pankratz." She looks impressed at that, at least. Really, his noble surname is worth more than his continent-spanning fame as a bard? Kids these days have the worst priorities. "Now, since we're to be traveling companions, I don't suppose you could tell me your name? Only everyone's going to think quite poorly of me if I say I traveled all the way from Sodden to Aedirn with someone and don't even know her name, you see."

"Yennefer."

He doesn't mean to laugh, he really doesn't, but...of all the names to spring on him. He manages to stop while the girl still looks just startled and not upset and explains, "Sorry, it's only I know another Yennefer. A much worse one," he adds. "You're definitely the superior Yennefer. No, no, sincerely," he adds at the kid's dubious look. "The superior Yennefer, in every possible respect. So, so glad I woke up to see you and not her. Waking up to see her face was -" He shudders theatrically.

He had been considering at least talking to the mages but oh no, that's definitely not on the table now. Lilit only knows how Yennefer'd take hearing about this kid sharing her name - assuming Yennefer herself is not actually Lilit incarnated to fuck with people. Hadn't there been some old prophecy about that, bunch of evil girls all getting born at once that the sorcerers saved everyone from? Maybe they missed one. Yennefer probably wouldn't take it out on the kid directly, at least he'd hope not, even evil must draw the line somewhere, but being spared would be little comfort if the kid's parents end up turned into newts by an insane sorceress who's decided to take offense over her name being associated with anything less than perfect. "You know," he adds, "Other Yennefer - let's call her Worse Yennefer, just between us - was actually at the battle here! Funny coincidence. She absolutely wrecked the area, set fire to everything. A hero, they're saying. Which, if you'd met her, you'd know is nothing like Yennefer, so most likely she just showed up because she wanted a chance to burn everybody and it just happened to work out that everybody left by then was Nilfgaard. Or she killed Sodden people too and nobody wants to criticize that in case they're next. That's more likely, now that I say it." Indiscriminate spellcasting had been largely how the dragon hunt ended, as far as he could work out, so that was probably just Yennefer's normal contribution to anything she was involved with. "I suppose she might've been blackmailed into doing something helpful and good for the first time in her life, but really, I don't think even other mages would have the balls of steel that'd take. And I do mean you'd need balls of steel, given she is not above deciding to slice them off over nothing at all."

The girl just blinks at all that. Such a better Yennefer. Really, this Yennefer should be upset by Worse Yennefer prancing about ruining her perfectly good name. While he's not going near the mages with the kid around, he will definitely make sure to tell Worse Yennefer something of this next time their paths cross. Or, no, this is worthy of verse - and it has the added benefit of Jaskier not actually needing to be in newt-transforming range when she ends up hearing it. Really, the hardest bit will be trying to get a fresh spin on the well-known fact that sometimes people who are born beautiful are really the ugliest underneath and to be truthful, he's willing to be just a tad cliche if it makes for a better tune. Sometimes, what's really important is that your song be popular and catchy enough to travel to your target so they can hear it. Incessantly.

"Did she do that to you?" the girl asks.

"Hm?"

"Did she cut your balls off?"

"Certainly not!" Jaskier says. "I assure you everything is very much still there and in perfect working order. It was on the table, though. There was this whole thing with a djinn, and she almost killed herself but unfortunately for everyone, before that could happen my least sensible friend decided to intervene because apparently we couldn't just let that happen even though we very much could've, and so the world's still stuck with her and Geralt doesn't even have the decency to apologize to the rest of us for it. For a witcher Geralt is actually just incredibly bad when it comes to killing monsters. I mean, when he decides to kill them he does a good job of it, don't get me wrong, it's just other times he doesn't for all sorts of reasons, and most of the time I can see his point, but her! Like we don't all know the real reason he's fucking her is because apparently if you spend all your time fighting monsters you start to think sleeping with them is a good way to spice things up in the bedroom."

Better Yennefer stands there, visibly processing this. Eventually, she comes back with, "Witchers can't kill sorcerers. Sorcerers made witchers."

Jaskier chuckles. "Really? Who told you that?"

"Everybody knows that," Better Yennefer insists. "The sorcerers made them out of dead men and demons."

Oh no, now it's less funny. "They are not," he corrects.

"They are."

"I actually know a witcher and I'm telling you, they are not. Witchers are made with potions." Jaskier's pretty sure that's the gist, anyway. "They're not demon-haunted corpses, they're mutants. Normal, alive, non-demon mutants." He spares a moment to be irritated about how it'd be a lot easier to defend Geralt if the guy wasn't unreasonably opposed to such conversational niceties as responding to questions people ask you. Next time he sees him Jaskier will point out that according to Better Yennefer, now people in Gulet think witchers are some sort of hellzombie - where had that even come from? - and how this kind of thing would be a lot easier to counter if some people would take their heads out of their asses long enough to explain how it actually worked instead of grunting about secrets and no longer mattering so some other people could write songs about it.

Actually… Jaskier might be able to use the kid as leverage to finally weasel that out of the guy. Geralt has no idea how to deal with children and this one is particularly talented at looking miserable, that's got to be worth a bedtime story or ten. Maybe he can even wrest some cute origin story out of Geralt about whatever he was getting up to at her age, before he became a witcher. Can she cry on command? Well, they can work on that if not, it's not that hard a skill.

"You know, little Yenna of Gulet, I think this is going to be a great trip for the both of us."