"Why wouldn't you travel by main roads?"

Episode 3, Betrayer Moon - Yennefer (& Istredd)

Let's stick with Yennefer, which will also reduce timeline shenanigans a bit.

We open with Yennefer and Istredd having sex while a crowd of mages watches. Turns out they're a bunch of illusions Yennefer made.

"Uh can - can uh, can they do something? Uh, they, they're just watching."

Istredd is not into this.

Now, we could talk about how Istredd seems generally into keeping his head down, how they're literally hanging out in an empty cave which is where he prefers to spend his time. But also, Yennefer, this is in fact super fucking weird.

I think it's kind of funny that this is a rare fandom where the canon actually goes into a lot of information about what the characters' sex lives are like and yet it's not really factored into the reams of porn being produced.

Yennefer makes the images of everyone she knows watch her riding her boyfriend and then applaud. Exhibition, but also the element of control - she's not doing this anywhere there's a risk of being found and there's no sign she's actually interested in that aspect of the kink. She wants to be the center of attention, she wants to choose what that attention is, and she wants it to stop and start when she decides. The illusion aspect means it's not necessarily something she'd enjoy happening for real if she did have the chance.

They then discuss their futures. They're being sent to different places, of course.

"Part-time dashing explorer. Stregebor says Temeria leans heavily on its mages."

His actual interest is in digging up ruins, but that's not his job, and we see here that it doesn't occur to either of them that just not doing their assigned job is an option. I wonder if the students even know there are rogue mages? Or, if they do, if they only know of them as criminals who only ran off to escape whatever punishment the mages enforce on their own?

We don't have enough information to make any sense of Istredd's placement. It sounds like this is a bad fit for him given he wants time to spend in those ruins, but possibly he's been sent to an already mage-friendly kingdom precisely because he's not going to be doing much to change anyone's mind on the matter and this is better than if he was expected to hang out at court constantly making a case for why the king should listen to him?

"Or maybe you'll be too busy for me once you get a taste of Aedirn revelry. King Virfuril is handsome. Allegedly."

This is innocuous but our first clue to the fact there's actually something pretty unsettling going on here, at least on the sorceresses' side of things. Neither of them seem aware of it or else Istredd wouldn't be teasing her about the king being handsome.

"If I do a good job I can persuade him to give you access to our ruins."

As excited as Yennefer is at her placement, her response makes it clear she's still very invested in Istredd. And she's probably looking forward for the chance to do something nice in return, to have power and use it for others...

But also, what an interesting way of phrasing it. She doesn't directly say, "I can persuade" but starts off with "If I do a good job". Yennefer is headed off for court with the attitude that you get what you want by first doing well on your assigned tasks, and, while she's less of a ball of trauma, she can't even manage the certainty of "I'll do a good job and then..."

Istredd: "Maybe we'll do this forever."
Yennefer: "Yeah."

Yennefer met him at fourteen and by all appearances this is the only relationship Istredd's ever had either. Their primary bonding activity for the last four years has been being miserable over their school experiences.