Kyrie practically jumped out of her skin as the door to the slave's bedroom slammed open. Looking up in surprise, she met a gaze that was equally as surprised coming from Vivian. Dessi was out at the guard house tonight, Neri was still tending to the two ladies, and Kyrie had thought that Vivian would've gone off to find Renard. Apparently that was not the case though. Not that this was an unwelcome interruption to her evening because Kyrie's face was soon melting into a smile to see her friend.
"Good evening."
Her hands had been starting to grab at her notebook, but now that Vivian was here she changed her motions just slightly so that she was pulling back the bedsheets to get in them rather than trying to grab under them. Vivian just let out a soft groan at the greeting and fell onto her own bed.
"Ugh, today has been exhausting: Raine and Markus were getting into everything today, even things that I didn't know existed!"
"Isn't that kind of what they do every day?"
"Well sure, but today it was the only thing they were doing! No breaks to read or play calmly with each other, it was just a constant battle of telling them not to touch such and such thing. I'm glad they're finally asleep now."
Slouching into her bed, Kyrie was sitting up but only barely, and she pulled her legs up a bit since that was the most comfortable for her current position. If Vivian wasn't here she'd have her notebook against her legs, but Kyrie liked Vivian's company, so it wasn't too much of a problem that she couldn't draw. As Kyrie thought about what Vivian said about the children, she rather absent-mindedly made her next statement.
"You've gotten much better with them, you know."
"What?"
Here Kyrie blushed a little: she was so comfortable with Vivian now that the thoughts that were in her head just spilled out unbidden sometimes, even before she'd had any time to think about whether she actually wanted to say what was running through her head. Vivian had never actually said out loud to Kyrie what had been bothering her in Raine's formative years, so Kyrie wasn't sure it was something she should draw attention to in the first place. Was it rude of her to bring it up like she was? At the same time though, it had been a while since Vivian's mood had begun to improve so maybe it wasn't quite as raw as it used to be?
"With children, I mean. I... I remember in the past it would get you down a lot, taking care of Raine. Maybe it still does but not in nearly as lasting of a way as it used to. And I just... I thought you'd like to know that I think you handle the children well."
For a moment there was silence from Vivian, and Kyrie wondered if perhaps it had been a forbidden topic after all. Tensing up in nervousness as the silence stretched on, she was relieved when Vivian finally broke it.
"Thanks, Kyrie... That... That means a lot, actually."
Her voice broke a little as she said this, and Kyrie wondered if her friend was getting a bit more emotional about it than she'd thought. Hopefully good emotional? Looking over at Vivian, Kyrie just couldn't seem to tell: Vivian's face wasn't angled in such a way that she could see it very well. Choosing to believe that it was good emotional, Kyrie simply smiled at her friend, glad that her comment hadn't been the landmine that she'd half been expecting.
And it actually was a good emotional! For Vivian, taking care of Raine had always been a bit of a sore spot so to hear that Kyrie thought she did well at it... Well, that was heartening. Was she really that much better with them than she used to be though? Thinking back through the years, she supposed that she was. She no longer found herself thinking about how she wanted to just drop or strangle the baby/child in her arms, and she didn't lament her fate any longer. The only problem was that she didn't know if it was because she'd become more patient and experienced or if it was just little children that she couldn't stand.
Should... Should she ever try for children of her own?
The age old pangs of protest stirred in her at that, and she still wasn't sure that was what she wanted.
Thankfully, Vivian's attention was drawn away from her brooding by more words from Kyrie.
"Are you not meeting Renard this evening?"
Well that wasn't quite the diversion she was looking for, because not being able to see Renard was a constant low-key stresser for her. As a result, Vivian responded with a sigh as she rolled over to face the ceiling.
"He wanted to do some more work out in the garden. He said that if he showed up then it wouldn't be until very late so in protest I'm sleeping alone tonight."
"Oh..."
Kyrie sent a nervous glance over towards her friend, and even though the room was dark, she was pretty sure she could discern a pout on the other woman's face. For a moment, Kyrie considered suggesting that Vivian go and join Renard out in the garden, but it somehow felt wrong to do that: not only did Kyrie think that Vivian wouldn't let Renard get any work done, but also that just felt like something that he wouldn't like. In the end she kept her mouth shut, though a vaguely unsettled feeling in her stomach made her feel like she was doing the wrong thing: Renard may not like it at first, but it was still possible that Vivian going out there to see him could help them get closer to each other.
Deciding that they needed a change of subject, she thought it would be good to bring up something that had been bothering herself lately. Kyrie glanced briefly towards the closed door to make sure they weren't going to be interrupted, and quietly spoke out.
"Has... Has Renard been acting strange lately?"
Vivian's mind, which was already full of suspicion for Renard right now thanks to his request to be out in the garden (was he really out in the garden?), immediately turned some of that suspicion towards Kyrie. Why was she asking about Renard? She wasn't interested in Renard was she? … There was no way: she was way too lovey with Isaac to even dream about her man! Even though there was no reason to suspect her friend of anything untoward, she couldn't help the wariness from seeping into her voice.
"What do you mean?"
Here Kyrie got a little flustered, especially considering how forward the question had sounded coming from her.
"Oh no! I didn't mean--!"
Blushing a bit at how Vivian was bound to misconstrue her words, Kyrie brought her hands up to her cheeks in a bit of embarrassment as she stammered out her real point.
"I-it's just that Isaac has been acting a bit strange lately, I was wondering if Renard has as well."
This response of Kyrie's immediately took Vivian's suspicion off her friend; it wasn't that she was asking about Renard specifically, she was asking about him only as a comparison to Isaac. That made a lot more sense.
Had he been acting weird though? Vivian pondered this question, thinking back to her time with Renard in the past few weeks. She wasn't sure she could pinpoint anything out of the ordinary aside from that he'd been spending more evenings out late in the garden.
"Strange how?"
Kyrie shifted a bit so that she was hugging her legs and let out a soft hum of contemplation. It was hard for her to really put into words; it wasn't anything that obvious that Isaac was doing, but it permeated through his every interaction with her. Suddenly her heart pounded hard in her chest as a thought came to her: did he somehow find out what had happened with her and Renard? With her mind swimming in a panic now, it took her a minute or two to calm down and really think about it rationally. It was silly to think that was what was going on: he hadn't confronted her about it and he didn't seem upset, it was just that he seemed to want to hold her close even more than before.
"I don't know: it's hard to really put a word on... I guess sometimes when he holds me lately the intensity with which he does it makes it seem like he's worried I'm going to disappear? I feel like something's bothering him, I just don't know what it is. I tried asking if anything was wrong and he only said there was never anything wrong when he was with me. It wasn't much of an answer, but I felt like pushing wasn't going to get me anything."
It was Vivian's turn to let out a hum now. Had she been noticing something like that with Renard? A little, she supposed. For the last week when they had sex together it had been consistently done with a lot of intensity. That wasn't really anything unusual though, they generally preferred the fevered pace where they thought of nothing but each other.
"Renard doesn't seem to have been hit with that. Or at least he hasn't been doing anything too unusual that I can see."
Vivian shrugged and Kyrie just furrowed her brow more in worry. If Renard wasn't feeling any sort of pressure then why was Isaac? Though really, it could be that Renard was feeling pressure and wasn't showing it to Vivian; he didn't tend to show a whole lot of his emotions to the women in his life. Kyrie had gotten lucky by coming across him while he was vulnerable so she knew that there actually was something behind the mask. Now that she was thinking about it though, she couldn't help but wonder if his work in the garden in the evenings was something to blow off some steam? She'd seen him rip apart plants in anger before: it had been terrifying, but at the same time it had been strangely beautiful. If Vivian wasn't here she might've been tempted to try to go out and find him: if Isaac wasn't going to tell her what was wrong then perhaps Renard would.
As it was though, her eyes trailed out to the window: she couldn't see anything in the darkness of night, but she still found herself looking out when she thought of either of the two men that worked in the house. Kyrie desperately wished that she could get Isaac to really talk to her; maybe she was just being paranoid, maybe there was nothing wrong at all, but somehow that didn't feel like the case.
"I wonder what's wrong with Isaac then..."
"Maybe he just didn't like being away from you for so long?"
"Well, he didn't, but that intensity faded after the first week. I'm just not sure what would cause it to flare up again."
She said that, but at the same time there was a bit of unease in her for the circumstances of Jiera's visit. Did... Did Isaac somehow know more details about it than them? Did he know that something particularly unpleasant was coming? Her throat felt dry as she opened her mouth once more, and she could feel a small tremor running through her body.
"You don't think it has something to do with Jiera's visit, do you?"
"Why would Jiera's visit have anything to do with Isaac?"
Vivian just wasn't connecting the dots at all from where Kyrie had started, and Kyrie fidgeted a little now that Vivian was looking to her to explain.
"It's just... Surely you've noticed how strange it is for Jiera to visit the Terra Kingdom. Especially now of all times when Lady Dandridge and her family are so unpopular. Maybe... Maybe Isaac's caught wind of why she might be here, and what if the reason she's here is something concerning to our lady as well?"
"What could Isaac possibly know about it?"
"I don't know, but that's the only thing I can think of that would make him worried about staying together with me."
Vivian paused here to contemplate that idea, but in the end she gave an almost dismissive wave of her hand.
"Even if that was the case, it's not really anything for him to be worried about. I'm sure the lady has everything under control."
"How can you know, though?"
"How can you not?"
There was a hint of incredulousness in Vivian's voice, and Kyrie was struck into silence by this retort. It was strange to think that out of the two of them, Vivian was the one who had the most unquestioning loyalty to the lady. It had never really come up before, and while Kyrie worried and showed doubt, Vivian didn't because she trusted the lady to act as she always had.
"Kyrie, Lady Dandridge has had numerous attempts on her life over the years, and I imagine there's even more going on that we don't see. Life has always continued as usual here and I have no doubt that whatever's going on now will also be weathered by the lady. If this is what Isaac is so worried about then smack him for me, because it's a stupid thing to waste effort worrying on."
"You're really not worried...? If something happens to her then it's also your livelihood at stake."
Vivian shrugged at that.
"If I worried about every little thing that could go wrong in my life then I'd be paralyzed into doing nothing, or just be miserable."
This was speaking almost entirely from personal experience; the more she thought about how Renard was sleeping with other woman, or how much Raine was such a pain in the ass to take care of, the more miserable she'd been. She still had a jealous mind, one that defaulted to blind suspicion rather than contentedness, but not worrying too much about things was just the better way to go in general. It allowed her to still enjoy her time with Renard, and it had made spending time with Raine and even Dessi a lot more tolerable. If only she could fully eliminate the jealous reaction, but it was so deeply ingrained in her that she wasn't sure it would ever go away completely.
"I suppose that's true..."
Kyrie then thought about how she'd come to a similar determination after sleeping with Renard multiple times. Instead of focusing on what could go wrong with the situation (which had been making her a complete emotional wreck), she turned towards trying to enjoy whatever she found herself drawn to. It still sent a bit of pain through her to think about how Isaac and Vivian would take the revelation if they ever found out, but Kyrie was better at pushing down that fretting than she had been: it just wasn't productive to dwell on.
"What do you think I should do about Isaac being out of sorts though?"
"Exactly what I said. Smack some sense into him."
In spite of her better judgement, Kyrie let out a soft giggle. She would never do that, of course, but perhaps that was what made the comment so absurd.
"No, seriously."
Vivian chuckled a little herself as she rested her hands behind her head.
"Hmm... I guess reassure him that you're there for him? If you really want to relieve him then blow his mind with some amazing sex."
Kyrie let out a soft gasp at that.
"Vivian!"
The woman in question laughed at Kyrie's outrage but stuck by her claim.
"I'm serious! I'm willing to bet that you don't initiate much with Isaac; if you push him down and start ravaging him then his mind will be way too distracted to worry about whatever he's worrying about."
Kyrie blushed brightly as she tried to imagine herself doing something like that, and she just couldn't do it. Covering her face with her hands she vigorously shook her head.
"There's no way I could do something like that!"
"You never know if you don't try."
Kyrie mumbled something rather incoherent as she rolled away from Vivian and curled up under her blanket, resting on her side now. She was making it pretty clear that Vivian had effectively shut down the conversation. Vivian just laughed to see her friend's embarrassment.
"You are just too much fun, Kyrie! I'm sorry that I've embarrassed you like this but I really think it would help."
After saying this, Kyrie heard movement as Vivian stripped herself of her clothes to nestle under her own blanket. As she lay down on her pillow, her eyes got a little sad and she silently rubbed her hand along the pillow next to her head. She missed the familiar warmth of Renard as he lay next to her. Letting out a soft sigh, she tried to imagine Renard holding her close as they lay in bed together.
"I wish I was with Renard right now."
These words were practically mumbled by Vivian but Kyrie still heard them. For a moment she was quiet, debating whether she should pretend not to have heard, but in the end she did say a small bit.
"This has been nice though. We so rarely get to spend time together when we're not working."
"That is true, perhaps we should do it more often; it'll leave our men craving us more and more."
The two women giggled softly at that. Another bout of silence began to stretch through the room, and while Kyrie wasn't quite falling asleep, Vivian was beginning to drift off rather quickly now that she was under the covers. After a couple minutes had passed, Kyrie softly called out her friend's name only to be greeted by the steady sounds of breathing. Vivian's day really had been exhausting if she'd fallen asleep so quickly.
Kyrie took a little longer to fall asleep though.
Her mind began trailing back to what Vivian had said about pushing Isaac down. Kyrie had vehemently denied being able to do it, but a part of her wondered. That woman she'd seen in the mirror when Renard had sex with her... she had looked completely different from how she usually looked, and if that really was what she was like when aroused then perhaps she could successfully push Isaac down. That meant that she already had to be aroused when she pushed him down though, didn't it? She supposed that wasn't too hard, often when she was in Isaac's presence her body tingled with a warm anticipation. The mere thought of it just made the blush on her face all the worse and she hid her face under the blankets.
… Would he even like it if she did something like that?
Her mind played out a myriad of scenarios involving her pushing Isaac down, and these were what she ended up falling asleep to.