False Alarm

When Kyrie heard that someone had attempted to poison their lady it put a real damper on her mood, which was saying a lot because her mood had already been pretty low thanks to how long Isaac had been away.

A few weeks had passed since Mae had given birth yet he still remained at Jiera's household! Why though? This was much longer than Kyrie would've thought for a visit, even if the visit was a contrived reason to allow Mae to recover from giving birth! The lady had been up and moving after the first week, so why did she continue to leave Isaac leagues away? Not even the excuse of visiting a really good friend should be able to keep Mae away from her affairs for this long!

Though... just how much of a friend was Jiera, really? It just didn't make sense that the attack would come from perhaps the one place that Mae trusted. Mae hadn't said anything to her staff denouncing Jiera but Kyrie still couldn't quite feel comfortable with the idea of Mae's so called best friend. Lady Dandridge was just as precious to her as she was to all the other slaves in the Dandridge house; which was to say that all of them would do everything in their power to protect her. Kyrie didn't know that she'd ever be brave enough to sacrifice her life for Mae's, but that level was about right for how important the lady was to all of them. If Jiera had anything to do with the attempt on Mae's life, then there was no way she should remain unpunished. Or even remotely liked, for that matter.

And what about Isaac? Was he in any danger being at the Deveris household like he was? Surely whoever had ordered the assassination knew by now that the attempt had failed... Was that why Isaac still wasn't back? A cold sweat rose on the back of her neck at that thought, and she shivered in the night air.

No... No he would be fine... She had to believe that.

Even though Kyrie was very accustomed to drawing alone at night, tonight just felt so much worse with the thoughts that her mind was trending towards. She longed for the comforting embrace that Isaac would so willingly give her, so much so that she kept expecting him to show up behind her any moment now.

She knew she liked him, but she hadn't quite realized that her affection for him cut as deep as it did.

Listlessly trailing her eyes down to the notebook in her lap, it was only after staring quietly at it for a couple minutes that she finally put her charcoal to paper. Even then though, the efforts were half-hearted; progress was slow, and what she was actually drawing was an image of the garden where she was sitting shrouded in shadow. The picture had an incredibly lonely feel to it, as if there should be people in the drawing even though there clearly were not.

Feet stomping along the grass caused her to practically jump out of her skin and thinking quickly, she blew out the candle that she'd brought outside: as much as she was hoping that this was Isaac, at an instinctual level she just knew that it wasn't. The initial shock from light to dark left Kyrie blind for a couple moments, and she blinked furiously to try and get her eyes to adjust. Fear fluttered in her mind and she held her breath to listen more closely to her surroundings despite the loud pounding of her heart in her ears. Was Mae's poisoner coming back to try and finish the job? Or was this a spy? Come to peep in at the lady and spread more tales about her among the people of the Kingdom?

It was still hard to believe that information had gotten out in the first place... They had all played and replayed every conversation they'd had with anyone outside of the house to make sure that they hadn't slipped up, but they were all sure that it wasn't them. Mae even knew that, or at least, she hadn't confronted any of them on it. At the very least, whoever was spreading this information seemed to believe that Mae was in the Dominion of the Sea, still with Jiera. … Did that mean that the poisoner and the spy were two different people with completely different agendas?

Honestly, it didn't really matter whether this person in the garden was a poisoner or a spy, for both would be entirely unwelcome in the Dandridge house. Mae had been right to try and keep the information about her and Raine under wraps; she had predicted the ruthlessness of her political environment far better than any of her slaves had.

… What was Kyrie supposed to do now though? She couldn't go and get someone else because then she'd lose track of whoever this was, but if she followed after the person and got found out... Well, she'd have absolutely no way to fight back. Still, this was Mae that they were talking about. Kyrie respected her master more than she'd ever respected any other master before. If she may be so bold, she would also go so far as to say that she liked Mae. Kyrie had no personal relationship with the woman, it was true, but everything about her Kyrie thought was wonderful, impressive, or remarkably fair: she didn't want to lose a master like her.

Trying to swallow her fear, she quietly closed her book, put her charcoal in her pocket, and picked up the candle holder. Moving extremely carefully, she was glad when she couldn't even hear her own footsteps as she crept forward after this mysterious stranger. Her eyes had become much more accustomed to the dark now so she didn't find it too difficult to pick her way along the well maintained gardens.

Finding that she was only barely breathing as she came up behind a larger bush, she tensed up when she heard what sounded like an angry growl from the other side before a tearing noise followed it up. The voice sounded male, and there was a strange ring of familiarity to it even though she didn't consciously recognize who this was.

Moving so that she could find a spot to see through the bush, what she saw there caused her to rub her eyes for a moment before looking back. At first she thought her eyes were deceiving her in the half light, but no, there was Renard, tearing up one of the plants in his garden with what looked to be a vengeance. He had a candle with him to help illuminate what he was doing, though really this was just pure wanton destruction: the candle wasn't really needed for how imprecise he was being.

His hands were filthy as he dug out the roots, and he showed no mercy as he tore apart bits of the plant. The expression on his face was one that she'd never seen before: irritation and anger. Not once had she ever seen him with much of anything besides that mischievous smile of his; it was a big reason why she found interacting with him so strange and uncomfortable. Here he was though, digging around in the garden with a fury that ruined that perfect mask.

Kyrie found this strangely mesmerizing, to the point that her longing to see Isaac again dulled a little. Not so much because she wasn't worried about him anymore, but more because she was being presented with something completely new right in front of her face. She couldn't fathom why Renard was doing this, and it felt like she was seeing a window into him that was much more interesting than anything she'd ever seen before.

Only once Renard had thoroughly torn up the patch of soil did he finally crouch down on the ground with a bit of a heavy sigh to examine what he'd done. His hand absently reached into his coat and to Kyrie's surprise, he pulled out a heavy cigar. Here was another thing that was a complete and utter mystery: there had been no indication to any of the rest of them that Renard smoked. Well, Isaac probably knew since he went out and got the supplies, but Renard and Isaac were pretty close so it was no real surprise that Isaac would know more than the women. Lighting up his cigar with a match that he also fished out of his coat, Renard then remained in his crouched position, enjoying the cigar as he calmed down from his rage fit.

Now that Renard was no longer angry, his gaze was thoughtful and critical as he peered at the empty patch of land. If Kyrie had to guess, he was probably trying to figure out what to put there, and it was watching this that helped Kyrie come to more of a realization: Renard took a huge amount of pride in his work.

Honestly, it shouldn't have been as much of a revelation as it was: one look around the garden and it was clear that not only were the plants well-maintained, but they were arranged in ways that were visually appealing. Still, to watch him as his eyes surveyed the surrouding plants, occasionally reaching out to touch something nearby, Kyrie could see that not only was he cultivating life, but he was also creating art.

Kyrie felt her heart go out to him then. Sometimes when she went back to look at some of her older pieces she felt the same distaste for them; she didn't have nearly as violent of a reaction to them though. Mostly what she did was go to a new page in her book and begin a new picture. It was nice to be able to look back and see old things, but when space was limited like with what Renard did, he had to be critical and innovate pretty much every day. Anything that didn't quite make the cut would be purged and replaced by newer and better things.

It was possible that he had just had a bad day and decided to take it out on something in the garden. If that was the case then Kyrie had less to relate with him. She wasn't particularly prone to bouts of anger, and she wouldn't have guessed that Renard was prone to them either before today. The things that could be learned from others in the dark...

Feeling no real desire to approach him, Kyrie didn't really like the idea of leaving either. It was just so out of character to see Renard like this that Kyrie couldn't help but wonder what else it was that he hid. She had told herself that she wouldn't do this again, watching people secretly like this, but she was in a weird enough head space that the distraction was more welcome than the guilt she'd feel about it later.

Quietly, Kyrie sunk down to sit on the ground herself, though she made sure that she still had a good view of Renard; to get to the house he would have to go in the opposite direction that she was in, so she felt pretty safe in settling down where she was. It was a serious invasion of privacy what she was doing right now, but what Renard didn't know wouldn't hurt him, right? She would act the same as always and so would he, because she was probably quite invisible in the night gloom of the garden.

Renard wasn't doing a whole lot at this point, quite honestly. He didn't have any gardening supplies that he'd brought with him, and Kyrie suspected that he wasn't going to be putting it back together tonight, he was just going to sit and think. Her own eyes trailed to the empty plot of his as well, and she wondered if this spot was one that had been really bothering him for a while. The sheer rage that was on his features when he was digging it up made Kyrie think so, but it could very well be that if he got angry about something then he would come out to the garden to release that anger on some poor unsuspecting plants.

There was no way of knowing, really. This night had shown her that Renard was not the man that she thought he was; she kind of felt like she was meeting him for the first time.

For a moment, she wondered if she should ask Isaac about Renard since Isaac was bound to have seen more of this side of his friend, but that idea was squashed almost as quickly as it came up. How would that look if she asked a man she was in a relationship with about another man who was infamous for being in a relationship with everyone? Terrible, that's how. She just had to be satisfied with when she happened to notice Renard coming out into the gardens at night then.

It was possible that this occurrence happened often but Kyrie hadn't really noticed it before. Drawing had always been able to absorb her, and then there was Isaac's company that kept her thoroughly distracted. She had really only noticed Renard this time around because of how listless and lonely she'd been.

Perhaps she should make more of an effort to listen to the sounds around her before she started drawing; at least then her efforts would sometimes be rewarded with a rare sight.

Even though she couldn't see quite as well since her candle remained unlit, she still found her eyes turning downward towards her notebook.

She'd probably be able to draw in this light...

Quietly opening her notebook to an empty page, she looked up at Renard for reference before putting the charcoal to paper. Instead of the slowness she'd felt earlier, now the lines flowed freely from her hands. Perhaps the pictures she was making didn't look as good since she didn't have the scrutiny of her candle, but at least she had a purpose once more.

With Renard as her subject, her mind was once again active.