"Geralt, stop fretting and be reasonable. Half the continent is looking for Ciri! Djikstra has his spies everywhere, and so has the Emperor of Shitgaard. Moreover, you aren't exactly inconspicuous with that white hair of yours and the scars and your Witcher swords. You stay here with Ciri, teach her all your Witcher tricks, and I save that bard of yours. You know I have done it before, even without my magic. With my chaos, it'll be easy as pie, you'll see. I'll only be a few days."
Yennefer kisses the white-haired Witcher on the mouth, effectively preventing him from any form of protest. Which would be totally pointless anyway as it is a physical, psychological and metaphorical impossibility to win a fight like this against the black-haired sorceress once she has made up her mind. Which she has. Perhaps she is right, too, Geralt has to admit to himself. She has single-handedly saved Jaskier from creepy-crazy Rience in Oxenfurt although she had lost her chaos. Yennefer is a lot more inconspicuous than he, too, at least when she is dressed in her practical, rather plain riding attire and not in one of her fancy evening gowns, and not performing her incredible magic left and right, like capturing a djinn or setting entire forests on flame. She is one of the most powerful sorceresses on the continent, it is true, and it would be nice for her and Jaskier to connect a little more. He should indeed not worry so much, he is not a feeble-minded grandmother. What can possibly go wrong?
Everything, obviously ...
Another kiss for Geralt and a tight hug for Ciri later, Yennefer portals to the outskirts of Oxenfurt. Jaskier, or rather the Sandpiper, was seen in a tavern in Gors Velen a while ago, trying to help elves escape to the south. Then his trail has become somewhat blurry. She has heard rumours of an almost arrest by Temerian soldiers and his narrow escape with the help of a squirrel commando. Then nothing for a while until he was sighted in Oxenfurt at the Academy by Geralt's friend Shani. It was the red-headed medical student who alerted Geralt to the bard's disappearance, too. A disappearance under quite fishy circumstances that smacked more of a kidnapping than anything else. Definitely something more serious than a vengeful cuckolded husband or furious father or brother of some fair maiden Jaskier had it off with. Hm, what kind of trouble might the bard have gotten himself into this time? Maybe the Temerians or Redanians are finally onto him for smuggling countless elves to Cintra? To this day Yennefer has not quite grasped his true motivation for it. After all, it is a very dangerous undertaking, and he does not even take money for it, the moron. Is it really his fear that artists would be next? Or an insatiable thirst for fame, the desire to become a living legend? Both explanations not really convincing, if you ask her. After all, Jaskier is already a famous bard, maybe not quite a legend yet, but popular enough to earn him good coin, as well as great favour with the ladies. And gents if you can trust the rumours. No, there must be more to it, something he has not told her yet. However, Yennefer is determined to find out the bard's secret. And, come to think of it, she actually kind of misses him. Not a hell of a lot, mind you, but he is a fun guy to be around, even though he can be a pain in the arse sometimes with his constant chattering. What a stark contrast to Geralt who can go days without saying much more than hm and fuck once in a while. Perhaps that is why she is so keen on meeting Jaskier again? To have somebody to chat and gossip with like she used to do with her friends at Aretuza? Well, whatever it is, somehow the silly sing-songy twit has grown on her, and she cannot let anything bad happen to him. Time to save the damsel in distress, then. Again.
Her meeting with Shani at the university is nice enough, albeit not very enlightening. She managed to get them into the bard's lodgings with the help of a lock pick, but otherwise the young student knows very little about what happened, nothing useful that could lead her to Jaskier's captors. If he is held captive somewhere. Which might not be the case at all as Jaskier has gone missing before, only to show up alive and kicking and happy as ever after an extensive affair with a countess in some remote fairytale castle, or whatever. The only thing that really worries Yennefer is the fact that Jaskier has left his lute behind. Would he really do that? It is a brand new one, too, and exceptionally beautiful, clearly crafted by highly skilled elves. It must have cost a fortune. No, he would not abandon a unique and magnificent instrument like this one and not come back for it for more than two weeks if he could help it, Yennefer is sure of it. So, he obviously cannot help it. Because he is held prisoner somewhere. But why? And, more importantly, where and by whom? Shani promised to keep her eyes open and contact her immediately in case she hears anything, but until then, Yennefer has to come up with some other ideas of how to locate the bard. Fuck, she should have put a tracing spell on him. She will surely do that when she has found him, she swears to herself. Alright, what is her plan? So far Yennefer has only figured out what she would definitely not do, namely ask a whore for help. No, never again, at least not in Oxenfurt, she has learned her lesson well. However, that bloody whore's tip about the tavern was not half bad. The only food in Jaskier's place being a mouldy and rather small piece of hard bread, she needs a decent place to get something to eat anyway, so a tavern it is. Perhaps the one where she met the Sandpiper for the first time? At least the innkeeper would know the bard. He might have heard something.
He had not. However, he remembered something interesting and highly worrying. Whenever Jaskier was staying in the inn to perform in the evenings, the innkeeper explained, he often got messages - via owl. And owl could only mean one thing, or rather one person - Philippa Eilhart. Which is not exactly welcome news since wherever Philippa is involved, Dijkstra is, too. Fuck. If the Head of Redanian Intelligence has the bard, nothing good can be expected. But what could Dijkstra possibly want with silly, happy-go-lucky Jaskier?