Consulting Another

She could comfort Renard but what she couldn't do was comfort Kyrie.

When Vivian saw Kyrie that morning the younger woman didn't look any better than she'd looked yesterday. The two of them were sitting at the table while Dessi got breakfast ready and Vivian just had to prod Kyrie a little.

"Did Isaac not come to see you last night?"

Kyrie's eyelids fluttered at the question from unshed tears and her lower lip trembled as she responded.

"No... Well, maybe he did... Some things had been moved in the room, I think, but I never saw Isaac..."

As Vivian fluffed up with irritation, Kyrie bowed her head, and the irritation that Vivian felt gave way to worry for her friend. Vivian pulled Kyrie in for a hug and Kyrie clenched her eyes shut as she struggled not to cry.

"At least he came up to the room, right? That's a good sign..."

Vivian was trying to be optimistic, but honestly she was furious that Isaac had come up to the room but neglected to confront Kyrie. Had he always been such a coward?! As tightly as Kyrie clung to her, Vivian was not the one that was going to be able to heal her: she could tell by the way her own words had given her such hope. Hope that Vivian wasn't sure that she shared.

Still, she let her friend go after making sure she was ok and soon the three women were eating their breakfast. Nobody really said a whole lot though, and it ended with the three of them going their own separate ways.

Vivian was supposed to go and tidy up the two ladies bedrooms once they had come down to breakfast, but this morning she made a beeline straight for the stables. There was talk that the lady was heading out to the castle again today and she had to get all of this off her chest before Isaac left the grounds. Sending a silent apology to Neri since she'd be leaving her with the bulk of the cleaning for the morning, she was sure that the other woman would forgive her if she told her that she was trying to fix this cloud that had descended over the staff in the Dandridge household.

Upon reaching the stables, she burst through the doors and put her hands on her hips in indignation as she looked around the stables for her quarry. Sure enough there was Isaac, prepping up the lady's carriage and looking a bit surprised to see Vivian standing out here. She'd honestly never had a reason to come into the stables before: not even the few times she'd ridden the carriage did she come into the stables itself, Isaac always brought the carriage outside before admitting its passengers. She was clearly here to speak to him though, and her eyes blazed as she stared into Isaac's eyes.

"You! You went and saw Kyrie last night, didn't you?"

To be honest, this wasn't what he was expecting Vivian to open with. With how upset she seemed to be, he was positive that this was going to be about the fact that he punched Renard. Yet here she was... Talking about Kyrie of all people. Isaac narrowed his eyes at this inquiry.

"I don't see what concern of yours it is whether I saw her or not."

"Of course it's my concern! Kyrie's my friend, and when she's upset it upsets me too! I can't just sit by and watch this happen without doing anything any longer, so tell me: did you go and see Kyrie last night?"

Isaac's brow furrowed all the more at this, and for a couple moments he kept his silence. He could just not respond to Vivian about all of this, but he felt like if he was to do that she would blow up even more at him than she already was. He may be willing to hit Renard to get him to stop talking, but he was not willing to give Vivian that same treatment. Better to give her an answer then, even if it was brief.

"Yes."

"And you didn't think to wake her?!"

This was a conversation that was quickly beginning to get under Isaac's skin, and as he opened his mouth to snap back at Vivian she plowed right on through.

"Do you know how happy she would've been if you had woken her up?! You wouldn't have even needed to say anything for her to be flooded with happiness, yet all you did was walk in and muss up the furniture a bit instead?!"

"I don't think you really understand what you're talking about here, Vivian."

Isaac's voice came out rather steely and cold, but the fire in Vivian's voice didn't cool even a little.

"Oh I know exactly what I'm talking about! I know that the reason you're fighting with Kyrie and the reason Renard got punched in the face is because the two of them have had sex with each other. I know that you're probably feeling betrayed and hurt. And I know that from your actions I can say with confidence that you're doing nothing aside from making everybody miserable! If you're going to actually go up to the room that you and Kyrie share the least you can do is wake her up! You can't keep stringing her along like this! She needs an answer. Ideally a positive one over a negative one but the only person who can make that decision is you!"

Honestly, he was shocked to hear that Vivian knew about this already. He'd been thinking about it so much in regards to himself that he hadn't even stopped to think about whether Vivian knew. Now that he thought about it though, that had to be why she and Kyrie had been fighting about a week ago... It was the only time the two women had ever had a major fight and this was certainly an issue big enough for such an upset.

"You... You knew already...?"

This was still processing in Isaac's mind, but this response from Isaac kind of threw Vivian off her game. He had completely ignored the rest of her protest, it would seem, and she didn't like that at all. Trying to get him back on topic, she started to speak.

"Yes, I knew, but that's really not what I--"

Before she could get very far along her own train of thought, Isaac was interrupting her.

"You knew and yet you're somehow alright with it? Even going so far as to try and help Kyrie?"

Suddenly she was the one being interrogated here, and she bristled. She should probably just redirect this to talking about his actions again, but a part of her felt like she needed to defend herself.

"I wouldn't necessarily say I'm alright with it... I'd still greatly prefer it if Kyrie and Renard hadn't gotten together in the first place but what's done is done. I can either dwell on how awful it is that Renard has slept with another woman and how Kyrie has deceived me, or I can sit back and really think about how things are: Kyrie has always been supportive of my own relationship and she isn't trying to take Renard's attention away from me. She still cares about me, and I... I still care about her."

"It doesn't bother you then, that Renard chose to go to someone else aside from you?"

Once again Vivian scrunched up her features from Isaac's questioning. Maybe it was because they were hitting so hard on concerns that she herself had brought up before. Somehow, it felt wrong for her not to refute them: she knew she was better than these awful niggling thoughts, and if she succumbed to them just as Isaac was then they were both going to be miserable. As a result she fought Isaac's questions despite the fact that her natural tendency was to empathize with them.

"I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me at all but how can it be helped, really? Renard has always wandered with his physical relationships, saying that each relationship is unique and brings completely different things to the table. I can either be miserable about the fact that he doesn't just want me all the time or I can enjoy the time that I have with him. I've chosen to do the latter."

"But then how do you deal with that? The sadness that he has other things to choose from? The inability to change what you don't like about him?"

Isaac's eyes drilled into her own, and feeling weirdly vulnerable, Vivian crossed her arms in a defensive fashion. Fixing him with a bit of a glare, she then shrugged. She tried to come off as rather nonchalant, but this was clearly touching on issues that she herself had had for a long time. Isaac knew that, but he also wanted to hear what she had to say because... Well because he was going through something similar now.

"I just don't think about it. I won't say that's easy to do, but I will say I'm a lot happier now that I've been making a concerted effort to not fixate on things that I can't really change and that don't even affect me that much, all things considered."

Isaac finally had no more questions as he turned his gaze away from Vivian to stare at the carriage. Would he ever be able to do that though? Could he ever accept the fact that Kyrie spent intimate time with another man? Clenching his eyes shut, he rested his head against the carriage, struggling to keep all of his emotions in. He had thought that she was his and only his, he had thought that he'd found the perfect woman for himself and yet... yet there was all of this now.

... She was still his perfect woman though. He loved Kyrie, he still loved her so much and that was exactly why this hurt so bad.

"I had thought... I had always thought that I was the only one that knew her like that, that what she showed me was something only for me."

His voice was quiet as he spoke, as if he was speaking through clenched vocal chords and Vivian's own throat clenched in sympathy. She looked away from him for a moment because it was really hard to watch this. She distinctly remembered thinking things like this when she'd found out about what Kyrie and Renard had done, and it was only when Kyrie actually showed her that Renard had something unique for Vivian that she really began to get over it.

Uncrossing her arms, she moved across the stables until she was placing a comforting hand on Isaac's back.

"You might think these to be empty words just said to comfort you, but Kyrie does have something unique to show you... Her love, Isaac. Renard may have seen her body like you have, but he hasn't seen all aspects of her heart like you have. Surely you realize that?"

He could feel a couple tears slipping down his face now, and he quickly moved a hand to cover up his eyes. What was he doing? Crying in front of Vivian like this? But her words hit him harder than anything else had: he knew at the core of it that he did have something unique with Kyrie, something that couldn't be replicated, but why did he even have to share her at all? He didn't want Renard to have a meaningful relationship with her, one that was unique in and of itself, he wanted to be the only one. It was selfish of him, horribly selfish, but it was what he truly wanted.

"I wish that it could be only me."

Once again Vivian's heart clenched in sympathy to hear these words and she lightly rubbed his back.

"I know... I understand exactly how you feel."

The two of them remained this way for a few minutes, standing in comfortable silence while Isaac slowly began to compose himself again. His mind had wandered back to what he was going to do about all of this, and that meant thinking about Vivian's original complaint: why hadn't he woken Kyrie?

Honestly, a part of him hadn't woken her just because of how tired she'd looked. When he'd crouched down by the bed, her face had been a little puffy with tears and the bags under her eyes told him just how exhausted she was. The main reason he hadn't woken her though was because if he did, he didn't think he would've been able to let her go again. It wasn't a horrible thing to lavish her with love, but it was a horrible thing to restrict her from being able to do something else she wanted to do because of love.

He still didn't know that he'd be able accept the fact that she wanted a relationship with Renard as well as himself, but what he did know was that if he wanted, he could force her to sever her relationship with Renard. He could make Kyrie choose either himself or Renard and since both Vivian and she had stated over and over again that Isaac had her love then she would end up choosing himself. Would she really be able to be happy if he did that though? … Would he really be able to be happy knowing that he was stifling his beloved?

He just... Didn't know.

"... Do you really think I should've woken Kyrie? Even if I still can't give her any real decision on what it is I want?"

"Without a doubt I do."

He lifted his head away from his arm then, fixing Vivian with a stare that asked her to elaborate, and so she did.

"At this point, Kyrie's not even sure that she still has your love anymore. Whatever decision you make won't change how much you love her, and showing her that would give her a lot of comfort and hope for the future."

Letting out a soft sigh, he mussed up his hair a bit before straightening himself up. She really wasn't even sure that she had his love anymore? He supposed if he thought about it, the only thing he'd really done was give her the silent treatment. When she'd begged him to stay he had indeed stayed but then he'd avoided her ever since then.

… He really had been stupid, hadn't he? Causing her more pain than he had ever wanted her to endure.

He needed to see her immediately then. He had to talk to her before he left with the lady, otherwise he'd just be leaving her even more depressed. Before he could even begin to move on this resolution, the door to the stables opened up to reveal exactly who he was looking for.

Kyrie was clearly surprised to see Vivian here with Isaac, but at the same time, the nervousness that she'd felt to be approaching Isaac on her own lessened thanks to the company of her friend. She was here because when the lady had turned to her and Neri and asked one of them to go out and check on the carriage, Kyrie had jumped on the opportunity in the hopes of being able to see Isaac and maybe talk to him before he left. Surely he couldn't avoid her now that he was actually in her presence? Now that she was here though, she just didn't know what to say, so in the end she started with what she knew was needed.

"T-The lady wants the carriage outside in five minutes..."

Kyrie couldn't even meet Isaac's eye anymore, and when he saw that he knew that Vivian was right. It had been wrong of him not to wake her, wrong of him not to assure her that his love still burned strong.

Completely disregarding the fact that Vivian was still in the stables, Isaac strode forward, gently took Kyrie's face in his hands to get her to look at him full on, and then captured her lips in his own.

At first Kyrie's eyes widened in sheer shock from this, but soon Vivian could see them scrunching with moisture quickly building in them before she closed her eyes. Wrapping her arms around Isaac, Kyrie held him tight, the tears slowly sliding down her cheeks as he gave her a kiss that translated all the feelings that he had for her, every last bit of them.

It was... It was truly beautiful to witness, and Vivian herself felt like tears were beginning to form in her eyes. A part of her wanted to keep watching this, but she knew that this wasn't something that she should be watching... It was the beginning of a private and intimate moment between the two of them: they didn't need Vivian lurking around. She was just glad that she'd given Isaac a piece of her mind because he'd been set back straight again. She was confident that Isaac had seen the error of his ways at least a little bit and she didn't need to be here for the beginning of their reconciliation. Taking this opportunity to slip out of the stables, neither Isaac nor Kyrie noticed the departure of the other slave.

Eventually, Isaac broke the kiss with Kyrie, but his hands still framed her face. When her eyes fluttered open to look up at him, he could see that she was crying again, but this time he knew they were happy tears.

"I-Isaac..."

She wasn't really sure what she was trying to say, but Isaac was soon moving forward to kiss beneath each of her eyes and murmur his response.

"I'm sorry Kyrie, I didn't realize... I've been so cold to you and you didn't even know that I still love you. I will always still love you, regardless of... Of what's decided. I still don't know that I can give you a direction on what I want to do, but you can at least be reassured that I love you."

Her hands reached up to hold onto his arms now as she let out a soft hum that came out choked with emotion.

"I'm so... I'm so happy to hear that, Isaac. I don't mind waiting, not at all it's just... the fact that you're talking to me again and interacting with me means so much..."

Unable to resist his love and the urge to comfort her, he leaned in for another soft kiss that she eagerly moved into.

"When I come back we'll properly talk about this, alright?"

Kyrie could hardly seem to say anything anymore, but still she managed to echo his alright, and once she said that the arrangement was sealed with one last loving kiss.