The action in the garden remained completely unknown to the inhabitants of the house, or at least it did to the two women up in the nursery.
Kyrie sat in the window staring out at the gardens with a rather lifeless expression on her face. She couldn't see Isaac from here, of course, but it didn't stop her from looking anyway. Usually when she was helping watch the children she brought some sort of portable work to do while she wasn't directly interacting with them, but today she hadn't even bothered. She had barely managed to get through her chores with the animals in the menagerie; trying to go above and beyond when she couldn't even handle her base job was just a lost cause.
Vivian was sitting close enough to be able to talk to Kyrie should she so choose, but for now Vivian was quietly working on her sewing. Her eyes did occasionally flit up towards Kyrie though, expecting her to move, talk, or just do something, but Kyrie didn't move a single muscle. This was... This was so much worse than how she'd acted after Renard told Vivian about the affair. She must've told Isaac what the two of them had done, that was the only reason Vivian could think of for why she'd be this despondent. But had he... Had he rejected her? The way she was acting made it seem like that was the case, but that just didn't make any sense in Vivian's mind. Isaac was head over heels in love with Kyrie, even if he was upset it couldn't be that lasting, could it?
Opening her mouth to start speaking to Kyrie, Vivian found herself hesitating and biting at her lips instead. She had tried thinking of what to say to Kyrie a number of times now, but every time she went to speak she felt like she just couldn't find the right words. Vivian had to figure out what exactly happened and that meant asking Kyrie about some deeply personal things. Was that something that should really be done in front of the children though?
Looking up from her sewing, she first looked over towards the corner where Breida was currently conked out before moving to the middle of the room. Last she'd checked, the two older children were reading through a book together on the floor but Vivian was alarmed to see only one child laying there now. Markus was swinging his legs back and forth above him as he flipped through the pages but Raine had moved.
Vivian's eyes swiftly made a sweep of the room, and her alarm only grew when she saw that Raine was headed straight towards Kyrie. Honestly, she wasn't sure why she felt this panic to have Raine going towards Kyrie: Kyrie was usually rather good at giving a smile at all times and she'd shown an almost infinite font of patience towards the children. Today felt different though, like her smiling face was finally going to break. Having Kyrie break down and cry in front of them just felt... Wrong.
Putting aside her sewing and swiftly moving to try and intercept the little girl, she winced when she found that she was too late to stop her.
"What are you looking at?"
At first it seemed like Kyrie hadn't heard the question directed at her, but soon she was shifting a little so that her eyes were resting on Raine. It was actually a little impressive, because when Kyrie looked at their ward she did manage a little smile, even if to Vivian it looked a little too sad.
Raine didn't seem to pick up on the nuances though.
"Nothing, really."
"Well you've been looking at nothing forever!"
Here Raine climbed up onto the window seat that Kyrie was sitting on and sat up so that she could stare out the window too. Evidently she didn't believe Kyrie when she said that she was looking at nothing, but now that she was up here she really didn't see anything of interest. It was just the same view of the garden as always! Kyrie had gone back to staring out the window and Raine was convinced that there had to be something Kyrie was looking for if she was so determined to look at nothing!
"Are you waiting for something?"
Leaning her head up against the wall, Kyrie let out a soft hum as she thought about that question. She supposed she was waiting for something: she kept hoping that she'd see Isaac, as if seeing him out there within her view would be able to convince her that he forgave her and still loved her. She knew that wasn't something she was likely to see out in the garden, seeing him wasn't even a real guarantee that he did forgive her and still loved her, yet she still hoped for it.
"I suppose."
"Waiting for what?"
Kyrie lightly bit the inside of her lower lip while her throat tightened up: the emotion was running to her face as much as she tried to hide it. Turning her features away from Raine so that the little girl wouldn't notice, her response was soft, and Raine would really have to be paying close attention to hear her.
"For... For Isaac..."
Seeing her friend's impending distress, and also managing to actually catch her response, Vivian felt like it was time to intervene.
"Raine, you've left Markus all alone over there! Don't you think that's being a bit of a bad host?"
Both Kyrie and Raine looked towards Vivian as she spoke, and Vivian could see relief in Kyrie's eyes while Raine scrunched up her face to be called a bad host.
"I just wanted to see what Kyrie was looking at!"
"And now you have. Kyrie's around all the time though, it seems like such a waste not to spend more time with Markus and Breida since we don't know how long they're going to be here for. Eventually they'll both head back to their home in the Dominion, after all."
The little girl looked between Kyrie and Markus for a moment before climbing down from the window seat. She looked a little sheepish, as if she'd just been chastised, so as Raine went to move past Vivian the slave reached out to pull her off her trajectory for a hug and to kiss the side of her face. Lowering her voice for only Raine, Vivian said one last comment to her.
"It's sweet of you to want to include Kyrie and I in your day, but you have to understand that when there are other people of similar rank to you in the house they should come first over us. We won't love you any less even if you spend all your time with others."
A small smile made its way to Raine's face and she returned a little kiss to Vivian's cheek. Having effectively heartened the child, Vivian let her go so that Raine could bound over to Markus and read with him some more.
There was at least one thing to be thankful for with Raine wandering over towards Kyrie: Vivian felt like she now had an opening to talk to Kyrie about Isaac.
Instead of going back to her own sewing, Vivian headed towards the window seat to hop up next to her friend.
"Isaac, huh?"
She was speaking softly to Kyrie, so that the children wouldn't really be able to hear them from their spot across the room. Still, Kyrie was trending towards silence since the only response that Vivian got was a soft hum of confirmation. This was her in though, she couldn't just waste the opportunity she had to finally get Kyrie to try and talk.
"Come on, Kyrie. Talk to me."
Her friend's gaze turned away from the garden now that Vivian had reached out to touch her arm, and she could see again that Kyrie's face was beginning to scrunch up in pain.
"What is there to tell? I'm sure you've already figured out why... Why I've been so unproductive today."
That was putting it lightly, honestly, but before Kyrie could rest her head back against the window, Vivian continued to press.
"Sure I have an idea, but what I don't know is the outcome. Are you and Isaac still ok?"
"I don't know..."
Her eyes once again trailed to the window as she said this, while Vivian's own face furrowed in confusion.
"You don't know? How can you not know?"
It seemed strange to her that something like this could even be unknown. When Renard had revealed it to her they had pretty quickly determined exactly where they stood on the matter: it was such a polarizing thing, after all, there just wasn't a whole lot of middle ground. Now that she thought about it though... She didn't think she'd ever actually seen Isaac angry. Maybe he was the type that was slow to act because he had to spend a bunch of time thinking about it first? He was definitely not nearly as spontaneous as Renard was.
Vivian's probing managed to get a bit more of a reaction out of Kyrie because she jerkily shifted her arm away from Vivian's hand.
"I don't know because I don't know! What is there not to understand about that?!"
A little startled by the apparent anger that Kyrie responded with, Vivian looked over towards the children again to make sure they hadn't noticed. Ultimately Kyrie hadn't been that loud, so to them it was seen as nothing more than Kyrie and Vivian talking to each other.
"But that doesn't make any sense, Kyrie! Did he just not say a single thing in response to you?"
Here Kyrie's anger deflated, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. What was the point in trying to hide this from Vivian? Maybe telling her would help somehow? In the end Kyrie just bowed her head in defeat.
"When I told him he... he was so hurt... I don't think I'll ever be able to forget how he'd looked at me; when I begged him to stay, told him that my love wasn't a lie he did stay end up staying with me though. We didn't say a word but he didn't leave me. I don't know if I should even dare to hope that that means we'll be alright. That he accepts the fact that I... I..."
Here Kyrie choked on her words, but Vivian nodded encouragingly to tell her that she knew what Kyrie meant.
"But what if he only stayed out of sympathy and not out of love? I want him to be in my life so badly that I feel like I should be spending every waking moment with him to try and convince him not to spurn me but I don't... I don't know if that's the best course of action or not. And so I'm left here, staring out this window and hoping that he won't avoid me this evening."
The more Kyrie spoke the more agitated she was getting: her voice got progressively fainter and her face scrunched more and more until a few stray tears ran their way down her cheeks. Her breath hitched a bit when she realized she was starting to cry, and she immediately brought her hands up to wipe at the tears. Vivian sent another glance over to the children to make sure they were still occupied before reaching out to gently hold Kyrie's face in her hands.
"You're ok, Kyrie. Just keep your eyes on me."
This did help her to calm down a little, but also made more words spill out of her.
"I don't know what to do, Vivian. I've hurt him so badly and I don't... I don't know that I can ever right that."
Honestly, Vivian wasn't really sure what Kyrie could do about that either, and even though Kyrie had hurt her so badly as well, Vivian felt her heart going out to her friend. This was cutting Kyrie so deeply... and Vivian's own desire for comeuppance got trumped by her sadness to see her friend so upset. Moving her hands so that she was hugging Kyrie now, the younger girl eagerly took Vivian up on this action, burying her face in Vivian's shoulder as she returned the hug.
"I'm so glad that you were able to forgive me..."
This came out as barely a mumble on Kyrie's part, but Vivian heard her nonetheless. Her heart clenched even more for her friend, and she gently ran her fingers through Kyrie's hair.
"I'm sure Isaac will be able to forgive you too, you just have to give him time. Keep trying to interact with him and he'll be able to decide whether his love trumps his jealousy."
"But this waiting is so terrible... I can't do anything while the day drags on..."
"I can understand that... Just try doing something to get your mind off it maybe? If you can't focus on work maybe you could do some drawing?"
Even through her misery it struck Kyrie as a little funny that Vivian was encouraging her to draw, mostly just because the other force in this house that really pushed her to draw was Renard.
"I... I guess I can try."
Kyrie slowly pulled away from Vivian then, and Vivian gently wiped at Kyrie's face in a motherly fashion to get rid of the salt lingering there from the few tears she'd shed.
"Well I'll be right here if you need me, and if anyone else comes in I'll cover for you."
The two women shared a smile at that, and while Vivian went to go pick up her sewing she noticed that once again Raine was looking at them with a bit of a furrow on her face. Vivian just smiled at her though, and gently nudged Kyrie to do the same once she got back over to the window. Only once Kyrie had also smiled to the little girl did she seem satisfied that nothing was wrong and returned to her play.
Raine really was the sweetest... Vivian only hoped that she didn't lose that kind heart as she grew older. The court life tended to change people, and not usually for the better.
Kyrie had pulled out her notebook in the brief time it had taken Vivian to get her sewing, and for the moment was just staring at the cover. Vivian smoothly opened the pages up to a blank page as she got up onto her seat though, and Kyrie gave Vivian another soft smile before she put her charcoal to paper and was off. Now that Kyrie was drawing, Vivian wasn't really making as much progress on her sewing since she was watching her friend create beauty from nothing.
But that's ok. Vivian didn't mind at all, especially because the drawing did seem to be helping Kyrie. And so the two women sat together in comfortable silence while the children played in the nursery.