Even though things were going fairly well inside the house, outside Isaac's mind was abuzz with activity.
Dessi had come to him that morning, telling him that the lady had commanded they go into the marketplace for some supplies. When Isaac and Dessi had made it to the market though, they pretty quickly realized that it wasn't supplies that Mae wanted, what she really wanted was the talk around town.
And boy had there been a lot of it.
The marketplace had been downright celebratory when they'd arrived, celebratory because the royal family was now dead. The slaves in the castle, led by a slave who was supposedly an illegitimate child of the king, had risen up in the night and killed their masters, and now this illegitimate son sat on the throne. Word around town was that now riots were happening all over the country against their noble overlords, and while Mae was safe from those large scale riots thanks to how well liked she was by her subjects, it didn't change the fact that there was a whole lot of chaos happening in the Terra Kingdom right now.
What were they even going to do going forward...? Mae's royal lineage meant absolutely nothing now, but she still had the power of her wealth so at least there was that. Since the assassination attempt on her had failed it meant that she should still have a fairly stable place in society all things considered. Still, Isaac couldn't help but worry. Wouldn't that place more of a target on the lady's head?
Staring up at the manor now, Isaac's eyebrows furrowed as his mind inevitably began trailing to Kyrie. When they'd woken up that morning she had been much better than she'd been last night, but she had been almost reluctant to leave his side. How was she doing now? Was she starting to think about the assassination attempt again? Kyrie hadn't even heard about the coup against the royal family, how would she end up taking that?
Running a hand through his hair, he took a deep breath and decided that he would silence these thoughts by just going up to see her. Not to tell her about what happened today but just... Just because he was worried about her, and because he knew that seeing her would help to settle his own mind. So when he finished putting away the horses he headed into the manor instead of going to find Renard and Jared.
Now that he was in the manor though, he couldn't help but feel so out of place.
Isaac's footsteps were soft in the hallway, as if he was expecting someone at any moment to walk by and scold him for not being outside. That wasn't going to happen though, and he knew that with certainty because the most important people in the house were in the menagerie which was not at all where he was headed. Hopefully Kyrie wasn't in the nursery right now, because if she was then he wouldn't really feel comfortable meeting up with her since Vivian and/or Neri would be there as well. The only chance he'd really have of approaching Kyrie would be if she was cleaning the extra rooms. He'd do a once over of the upstairs rooms and if Kyrie wasn't there then he'd head back outside.
As he moved forward though, he couldn't help this feeling of wrongness that pervaded every step. He was definitely shirking his duties by going to see Kyrie, and even though he'd done that before at his old job, it felt wrong to do it here. He really wasn't going to be in here for that long though, even if he found Kyrie, and that helped dull the wrong feeling. Coming upon the first door, he paused for a moment, straining his ears to pick up even the slightest hint of noise from either inside the room or around him. Only once he was satisfied that he heard nothing did he quietly open the first door.
Isaac was greeted by nothing but silence in the rooms that he opened, and with each door he closed behind him his spirits sunk lower. As he fretted about finding Kyrie, he also fretted about keeping Kyrie safe from whatever happened among the nobles. It got to the point where when he opened the door to Mae's study to find it empty, he paused for a couple moments. This would have to be where she kept their slave papers, wouldn't it?
As his thoughts lingered on this, he could feel a cold sweat forming on the back of his neck. Suddenly his throat was dry, and he swallowed hard as his eyes slowly panned over the room. They couldn't be so easy to get though, could they? It looked like there was paper stored in some of the cabinets, but if they were all filled with paper, the sheer amount of it was daunting to say the least. There was no way he'd be able to finely sift through all that while also keeping an eye out for when Mae would come back. It was even worse than that though, he had to be back outside before Mae even thought of moving around in the house again! It was just impossible for him to know when she was going to come back without having an accomplice.
The more he thought about it, the more he couldn't help but think that thievery really wasn't his forte. Renard had managed it pretty well when they were with their last master, but Isaac didn't know how his friend had managed it without being a nervous wreck or getting caught. Isaac knew that he wasn't well-fitted for this sort of sneaky nonsense, which kept him from moving forward into the study, but when he thought of being separated from Kyrie he found that he couldn't seem to actually move away either.
A loud clack practically startled Isaac out of his skin, and he looked around frantically to find the source. Only after he'd surveyed the area at least 10 times was he satisfied that no one was actually coming for him, but he could still feel his heart racing in his chest at the scare. Letting out a soft sigh, the temporary panic knocked him out of his current thoughts and he closed the door to the study once more, standing out in the hallway now as he turned in the direction he'd heard the sound.
It had come from further down the hallway, and if he had to guess it was the sound of one of the doors opening up and this meant that he had to have found Kyrie. A mix of nervousness and delight coursed through him at the thought of his lover, and he moved quietly as he headed towards the source of the noise. He wasn't entirely sure why he was moving so quietly, he just felt like he wanted to see her before she saw him. She'd walked in on him working before, but this would be the first time he'd walked in on her working.
He soon noticed that one of the doors was cracked open a little, and when he moved to stand in it he was pleased to find exactly what he was looking for. There was Kyrie, bustling about the room and dusting every flat surface she could get her hands on. Isaac watched her, almost mesmerized as she leaned down to get under chairs and stretched her body out to reach the top of shelves. A lot of it was out of her reach though, and as Isaac watched her step onto some of the other furniture to reach higher, his body moved forward before he could even think about what he was doing.
His hands settled comfortably along her sides to make sure she didn't fall, and Kyrie let out a soft gasp before turning to look down behind her. Her eyes went wide with surprise when she saw just who was holding onto her though.
"I-Isaac?!"
She could feel a blush spreading across her face, and she clamped her mouth shut as she found it increasingly more difficult to look at him because of just how happy she was to see him. She wasn't sure why she was so elated though: was it because it was completely unexpected and unheard of from him, or was it because she was getting to see the man she loved? Whatever it was, her heart pounded hard in her chest from this surprise visit; she felt like a rare treat had just fallen into her lap and now she was getting the opportunity to completely indulge. She always loved the rare times she saw Renard or Isaac out the window while she was working, but it was even rarer for one of them to come in and see her!
Plus... Even though she'd been doing relatively fine today in terms of what had happened last night, she did find her mind dwelling on what happened when she was alone like this. So to have Isaac swoop in like this was a welcome breath of fresh air, one that washed away whatever worrying she'd been doing.
Isaac simply smiled in response to her question, and he shifted a bit so that he was lifting her up, allowing her to reach the upper areas of the room without having to worry about falling over.
"Hello, Kyrie. I couldn't help but notice that you needed a little bit of a boost."
He helped move her about the room with her dusting then, and the blush on her face only got more and more pronounced as they went. Only once the two of them had made a full circuit of the room did he set her back down on the ground in front of him. She had her eyes facing down, but there was a truly delighted smile on her face as she uttered a soft thanks.
Ah... how easily seeing her blushing face like this could completely erase all the negative thoughts in his mind. Leaning down, Isaac held her face with one hand and gently kissed her on the cheek.
"I'm just happy to help."
Kyrie swelled with love to hear that, though the good feeling broke a little bit as she turned to glance at the window with some concern. Even though she adored having Isaac with her right now, she was positive that he wasn't supposed to be up here.
"Did you not have anything to do outside?"
"I do, I just..."
Here he trailed off, staring into Kyrie's eyes with such an intense gaze that she ended up turning her eyes to the floor, the blush still bright on her cheeks.
"I just really wanted to see your face."
Lightly touching her face again, he guided her eyes back up to him, giving her a loving smile that flustered Kyrie all the more. Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears from this action, but she didn't try to look away again. If he'd been looking to see her then it almost seemed rude to try and look away again.
Wanting more than anything to get a little closer, Kyrie leaned in to give Isaac a soft kiss on the lips. Letting out a rather pleased noise at that, Isaac wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tightly as their lips slowly explored each other. Isaac wished that he could just pack her up and take her outside with him so that they could spend all of their time together whether they were working or not. It was the kind of thing he would hope for if he ever became free: to have a small home that the two of them sustained together. He didn't need anything more than that; luxury didn't matter to him, he didn't even mind living far away from others, all that really mattered was that Kyrie would be by his side. He had gone to Kyrie to try and get his mind away from stealing their slave papers and Mae's affairs, but now that he was interacting with Kyrie again it only made him think about how much more he wanted security for them.
Living in Mae's household was a perfectly fine way of living: she gave all of them a remarkable amount of freedom and also allowed them to be much better off than even the poor population. It would be silly to give up the Dandridge household, but if Mae ever died... Well... Then Isaac would just have to make sure he had those slave papers so that he didn't have to worry about them all getting bounced to other places.
When they separated from their kiss, Kyrie looked at him with half-lidded eyes, her breathing a little heavier than usual. Isaac could read the desire for more in her expression and he pulled her in close again, hugging hard so that he didn't have to look at that face. As much as he wanted to meet that desire by ravishing her where they stood, Renard and Jared were bound to start wondering where he was.
Taking in a deep breath of her scent and burying his face into the side of her head in an attempt to satisfy his own desire, Kyrie closed her own eyes and savored Isaac's presence equally. She knew that it would be folly for him to spend more than a few moments up here with her, and that made her cling as tightly to him as he did to her. She didn't want him to leave: she hadn't had nearly enough time with him yet!
Isaac was slow to pull back from her, but it was inevitable that he did. Once again cradling her face and lightly brushing back the strands of hair that had come free from her hair tie, he quietly admired her for a second before speaking up.
"Sorry about interrupting you, and thanks for humoring me with this little whim."
Kyrie promptly shook her head, her hand reaching up to gently touch the side of his face while she spoke.
"You don't need to apologize at all! I always love your company, Isaac, it will never be just me humoring you."
The blush was back on her cheeks from the forwardness of that statement, but Isaac was practically beaming at her from it. Leaning in to kiss her one last time, he then let his hands slide away from her. It was always sad to part from her, but as he walked down the hallway now, there was a bit of a lilt in his step. The encounter with Kyrie certainly had put him in a much better mood, but it also had the unintended consequence of making him more determined to get a look through Mae's things for their slave papers. He started to wonder if he actually could get through the papers in the study. As long as he kept a good eye on the staff and the masters, he could go through it slowly and one piece at a time. It would take a while to find the slave papers, and he might not even find them in the end, but at least then he'd feel like he was doing something to secure his future with Kyrie. As he opened up the door to the gardens, he no longer felt as gloomy as he had been, and he smiled to himself as he stepped out.
Kyrie's day had also been considerably brightened by this visit from Isaac. The whole house was still a little out of sorts from the recent attack, so to have Isaac come up and visit her had been both comforting and heartening. Turning to look out the window of the bedroom she was in, it wasn't too long before Isaac was visible heading out to one of the sections of the garden. Her heart fluttered a little when he turned to look at the window to the room Kyrie was in, and when he found her there they both gave each other one last smile. Only once Isaac walked away again did Kyrie finally turn back to her own mostly finished room.