Kyrie was lounging in the grass in the menagerie, doing a whole lot of nothing now that she'd finished her animal related chores. She should be heading out to try and find something else to do, but she just couldn't bring herself to get up. It had been a couple weeks now since she reconciled with Vivian, and she knew that her time with Isaac was coming soon. She'd been able to put it out of her mind for a bit to just enjoy her time with her lover, but the longer she drew this out, the more the dark thoughts started to creep in. It was an inevitability at this point because even though Vivian had expressly said that she'd hated the news, she had also said that she'd been glad to be told in the end. With a reaction like that it would be just horrible not to tell Isaac. Isaac and Vivian were very different people, it was true, but it felt wrong that he was the only one in the house now that wasn't aware of what was going on.
It really didn't help that Kyrie had already agonized over this decision before: clearly she'd come to the wrong conclusion about the whole thing the first time around and that made having to reveal this to Isaac feel even worse. Kyrie knew that telling Isaac was the right thing to do she just... She just couldn't bring herself to want to do it. Every time she saw herself doing it in her mind, Isaac's smile would fade almost instantly and deep betrayal and hurt would spread across his features.
… How could she possibly tell him something that she knew would be like stabbing a knife into his heart?
The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to retreat into herself and hide where no one else would be able to find her for the rest of time. She may have made up with Vivian, but that was only one half of the puzzle. Without all the rest of her fellow slaves, she didn't think she'd ever be able to say without any caveats that she was truly happy.
… Was it selfish of her to even be worrying about this at all though? Most slaves worried about whether they'd have food the next day, or whether their masters would be kind, but here Kyrie was, worrying about her peaceful and not forced love life. This wasn't a luxury that slaves usually had and a part of her couldn't help but feel like she had been spoiled by this fair treatment. But... But was it really so wrong of her to want to be the happiest she could be? Even if she was just a slave?
As her brain tried to convince herself that even not having Isaac would leave her better off than pretty much every other slave, the sentiment just wasn't sticking at all. Or at least, if it was that fact really didn't matter: she couldn't accept not having Isaac in her life anymore, not now that she had tasted that sweet fruit.
Rolling over onto her back, Kyrie covered her eyes with her arms as she let out a rather loud groan that let out all the frustrations that she felt. It was likely that the noise had scattered the animals, but at this point she really couldn't bring herself to care. The silence that she was expecting to fall over the room once the animals had fled wasn't what ended up greeting her though, instead it was a voice.
"I suspected I'd find you like this."
Kyrie flinched to hear Renard's voice, but she didn't move her arm to be able to look at him better, instead she curled up all the more. How was he able to keep sneaking up on her...? Once again she hadn't heard him at all, and she couldn't help but wonder if he took the stealthy approach with her on purpose at this point. She couldn't be that lost in her own thoughts all the time, could she? Well... Now that she thought about it, his footsteps could've just been disguised along the movement of the animals. Whatever the case, Kyrie didn't really feel like socializing that much right now, especially not with Renard. She may have gotten permission from Vivian to be around him but it felt strange to actually do so. She kind of wanted to just continue to stay away from him until the whole house knew about their relationship. It didn't really make a huge amount of sense consciously, but it was what she wanted to do.
Clearly in a rather down mood, when she responded to Renard it was with a sullen note to it.
"Then you should know I'm in no mood to talk right now."
Since Kyrie wasn't able to see him, she couldn't tell that he'd moved to crouch down next to her, and when she felt a poke at her cheek she flinched away from him, frowning mightily. He was trying to tease her, trying to be jovial with her, but she just didn't feel in a jovial mood.
"Come on, Kyrie. You were able to reconcile with Vivian, who's to say that Isaac's won't go just as well?"
"I wouldn't exactly say it went well."
"You're still friends with her, aren't you?"
There was a pause here as Kyrie tried hard to think of some way to respond to this that would somehow throw Renard off his game and concede to her. Like usual though, she just couldn't really think of anything, so all she could really do was mumble out an affirmation to his question.
"Yes..."
"There you go then! It went perfectly well."
Once again Kyrie fell into silence, and Renard's own mood was beginning to deflate. She just wasn't getting out of her funk even remotely, and he was beginning to lose patience with her sulking. Well, the best first step in these cases was always to get her to show her face: people were so much more honest when they didn't think they were hidden anymore. Pulling Kyrie's arms up and away from her, he was able to expose her face to him while she let out a clear sound of protest. Kyrie's features were scrunched into an ultimately rather adorable pout, which didn't really do anything to deter him from his current course of action.
"And there's that cute face."
He gave her one of his charming smiles and she flushed: whether it was from embarrassment, flattery or anger was rather unclear though.
"Renard please..."
"Please what?"
"Just... Let me be..."
She wasn't meeting his eyes anymore, but the grip that he had on both of her wrists felt ever present. It was rather strange, really: now that Vivian knew about them it almost felt like Renard was touching her for the first time again. Somehow it felt different, and she couldn't really explain why it was that she felt that way. Whatever the case, she felt more nervous and antsy being underneath him, and while she tried moving away she was rather unsuccessful.
"I think letting you be is probably the worst thing I could do right now. Then you'd just wallow all the more. Come on now, let's hear it, you've gotten Vivian's blessing for our relationship, why isn't that making you happy?"
"It's not... It's not just Vivian..."
It was more a sentence fragment than it was an actual sentence, so Renard figured that this might just be her struggling to find the right words. As the silence between them stretched out, Renard realized that she didn't intend to elucidate at all, she was retreating back into herself. Finding this to be unacceptable, he lightly pinched her cheek, causing her to squeak a little and furrow her brow at him briefly before opening her mouth to speak again.
"Having Vivian's permission doesn't really mean a whole lot if I don't also have Isaac's. When this matter was completely unknown to both Vivian and Isaac, I knew how to act, how to handle myself. Now we're in a really weird transition period and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to treat Vivian, you, or Isaac. There... There hasn't been a final conclusion, and because of that I feel like I can't just go back to normal."
These feelings were something that Renard could only kind of empathize with. He understood the feeling of a tenuous balance that could break at any moment, but unlike Kyrie he didn't become paralyzed with indecision when faced with such situations. He tended to plow right on forward, acting like everything was ok in the meantime. Though, he supposed he had a lot more practice at covering up his real feelings on things.
In fact, even in this conversation he hadn't really been showing his honest feelings. He had spoken optimistically about having half of the reveal be done and over with, but all things considered, Vivian was the easier half. She was something that Renard could account for the success of, but if he was to reveal what he did with Kyrie to Isaac... Well... He was going to get punched, to put things lightly. He was almost positive that his friend wasn't going to be able to see and accept the nuances of their relationship: with Isaac matters of the heart had always been more black and white. Still, even if he dreaded being punched, telling Isaac had to be done sooner or later. Better to make it go quick so that the pain wasn't drawn out for too long.
"Then I'll break the news to Isaac the next time I see him. That way you won't be in this temporary state anymore, as you put it."
Kyrie's stomach clenched with dread at this suggestion. Did it have to happen so soon? So quickly after she'd made up with Vivian? While a part of Kyrie felt relieved that Renard was effectively taking pressure off of her by saying he'd tell Isaac himself, a bigger part of her actually... Actually didn't want him to. Usually she was so against confrontations like this, but shunting the responsibility to Renard in this case felt wrong. Isaac should hear it from her own lips if he was going to hear it at all, and yet just how much she didn't want to do that to him could not be overstated.
"No..."
Kyrie's voice was soft as she said this, and Renard began to furrow his brow in a bit of irritation.
"No? Kyrie, you know he has to--"
"I know! I know... I'm not suggesting we keep hiding this from him just... I don't want you to tell him."
Here Kyrie trailed off into silence, not because she wasn't going to say anything, but because it seemed difficult for her to speak. As Renard patiently waited for her to continue speaking, he could see that her eyes were starting to glisten with moisture.
"He should hear it from me, not from you."
Quite frankly, Renard was shocked to hear Kyrie say this. Kyrie, the girl who would so much rather let other people talk than talk herself, was actually suggesting that she spearhead this effort to appeal to Isaac. She was still reluctant, shy and nervous about it, but here she was, trying to take ownership of this responsibility. It was admirable, really, but Renard knew that she would need another push in order to do it herself: it was pretty likely that she would sit and wait on it for a while longer if left to her own devices.
"That's... Fair. How about this then: if you don't tell him within the next week then I'll tell him. That should galvanize you into getting over your indecision."
To be honest, this was actually much more preferred than Renard breaking the news to Isaac. Renard was an important part of Isaac's life, there's no denying that, but there was also no question that Kyrie was even more important to him. If Kyrie was the one telling him all of this, there was a chance that she'd be able to mitigate the hurt before it spread to the rest of the house. With Kyrie telling him, Renard might not even end up getting punched. Well... Maybe that was a little too optimistic, but he could always hope.
His statement towards Kyrie was rewarded with a bit of a sad look from said woman, and soon she was lowering her head with a submissive nod. She didn't like that he was effectively forcing her here, but she also knew as well as he did that it wasn't going to happen for a while if she was the one determining the pacing.
They fell back into silence then.
Well this interaction hadn't quite gone like he'd planned. He was expecting her to be a little happier now that she and Vivian were fine, but he must've missed the initial delight and was now dealing with... Well whatever this was. How was he supposed to deal with this though? A part of him wanted to just get up and leave, but then a thought came to his head. Was she... Was she so depressed and mopey because she hadn't had an outlet for her emotions lately?
Rather suddenly, he pulled Kyrie up so that she was in a sitting position instead of a laying one, and she once again made a sound of protest. Completely ignoring her complaints, Renard stuck his hand into the pocket of Kyrie's dress, causing her to let out a clearly startled sound before he pulled out her notebook. She blinked, almost in surprise as her eyes settled on her notebook; it was as if she had found it all over again after not setting her eyes on it for ages. If Renard had to guess, she probably hadn't been drawing in it at all for the past few weeks.
Sure enough, when he opened up the book to the most recent page that she'd drawn in, it was a drawing that he'd already seen before. The two of them stared in silence at this picture for a moment, and Kyrie began to look a little ashamed or sheepish as the silence stretched on. Soon she was averting her eyes, turning her gaze down towards the grass instead of on the notebook. Renard turned his eyes to look at Kyrie though, his eyes furrowed with a mixture of concern and disappointment.
"Well here's your problem! I find it hard to believe that in the past couple weeks you've seen nothing worthy of being put down onto the page."
Kyrie bit at her bottom lip a little bit before weakly trying to protest.
"I just... I really haven't felt like drawing."
"Now that's not true. Drawing is in your blood, Kyrie, and you know as well as I do that emotion helps art more than it hinders it."
She did know that... Countless times before she had used her art to help her deal with emotions that were running through her head, so why had she neglected it so much this time? Maybe it was because this time she truly felt like her life was falling apart, like there was really no point in all of this...
While Kyrie remained silent, Renard reached into her pocket again to pull out her charcoal. As Renard moved to press it into Kyrie's hand, she tried to resist him with a bit of force, a small 'no' of protest leaving her lips. Renard wasn't listening though, and he weaseled the charcoal past her fingers until it was placed in her hand.
Her arm shook a little as she slowly opened her hand to look down at the small writing implement. She hadn't felt like drawing, not even a little, but now that she had the charcoal in her hand it was as if her heart and mind were breaking open, begging to be let out through the lines on the page. Shuddering a little from this sensation, she let out a soft whimper, making a move to clench her hand shut in an effort to resist this feeling. Renard wasn't going to let her resist it though, and he moved the charcoal in her hand so that it was in a drawing position before slowly guiding Kyrie to the first blank page of her notebook.
No more prompting was needed than that: now that her charcoal was on the paper the lines began to form.
Despite the heavy resistance that she'd given him to begin with, as the time ticked by with her hand working away at these blank pages, the expression on her face became more relaxed. The furrowed brow she had in protest of the activity had completely disappeared, and she was no longer curled up into herself in an effort to clam up and hide. She was losing herself in her work now, just as he'd seen her lose herself in it before. It was quite frankly remarkable how easily drawing could improve her mood, it really didn't make any sense to him that she hadn't been doing this earlier. Maybe she had felt like she didn't deserve to feel better?
Renard watched her work in silence, and scenes of all sorts began appearing on these pages. Ones of Kyrie and Isaac, of Vivian and Kyrie, the individual people themselves in the manor, and just the manor itself... It was rather mesmerizing to watch, to be honest. She was taking a completely blank piece of paper and shaping hidden images that only she could see on them. Renard may not enjoy watching her go about her every day life, but he did enjoy watching her do this.
And so they sat together for a while: one silently screaming out the contents of her heart while the other observed in silence.