[ Istredd has always been good at passively taking in information, and with her he has made a skill at being soothing or calming instead of inflaming them both. He is the quiet one, the intellectual one, except he doesn't think like an intellectual when it comes to her. This is all fiery painful ugly emotion and he cannot back down, because they've never had it out, not really. She has stabbed at him and he has let it bleed. There's even a shimmer of tears held back in blue eyes, she's so good at making it hurt.]

You thought you wanted me, but you really just wanted a break from the world you'd made for yourself. In a few months, in a year if I was lucky, you would have gotten bored of our terrible liquor and my rocks and left me. Or I would have left my work in order to keep your attention, and you'd still get bored of me.

[ Yennefer wouldn't have fit into his life and he would have been tempted to leave it for her. Run away, start a different life, but then inevitably the fear would set in, that it was always temporary. Istredd sees even now that girl he met so long ago. She was scared then, in the start, and frustrated, but always so brilliant and strong. She shone brightly to him, and there he was, hiding away in his history books and with the ghosts of the elves. He remembers when she didn't know how to want more. But these are his insecurities talking.

Yennefer manages to knock him off course though when she says she was on her way to Cintra. He thought he was so stupid waiting there for her but she almost did. It knocks some of the anger out of him and only leaves behind surprise and confusion. ]

You were coming to Cintra?

[ Istredd wants to believe that. Even if he rejected her, for all the fears he just said, he still had hoped so much. And he only left when he saw a new mystery to unravel, and because he believed she would never show up. If she made it there, if they could have been on the same page again. What would it have meant? If nothing else, he just wanted to protect her. He was ready to walk away with her. ]

You were captured? If I knew ---

[ He would have come for her, but how much help would he really be? Well, he would try, regardless. Just because he never uses his magic to attack, he still has a great deal of it. Istredd is as skilled mage too, he only lets it be passive most of the time.

Yennefer's hands are gripped in his tunic and his eyes are stuck on hers. Istredd heard those tales and he thought them all true, of the Yennefer he knew, of course it was all true. And only now when she says it like that, when she grips him and he can sense fear in her, does he understand. Almost immediately his arms drop from her arms to her waist and he cannot help but pull her closer. Unconsciously offering comfort in a way he hasn't been able to in so long. ]

Yenna. Use me. They don't care about me, I'll seek out the information myself. There must be spells where you can absorb my chaos into yourself and use it, I'll find it and give it to you.

[ He would give some of his magic to her without a second's thought, if it kept her safe. Istredd lifts one hand to cup her cheek, so tender despite all the rolling emotions through him. He was angry she hid it from him, but now he understands. And that she has reason to fear. So all he can do is think of fixes. ]

Until then any time you need magic you can have me do it. I'm a psionics mage, you know I can make it believable. No one will have to know.