The Indifferent Night

Renard rides out of Verdanheim. Though the neighbours of Verdanheim are mostly not hostile towards it, and Verdan has instructed Renard on how to convey himself to border guards that they will not become too intrigued or suspicious of him, Renard finds himself again intruding past unpatrolled, isolated border-lines, rather than simply following the main road.

He just doesn’t want to speak to anyone, right now.

Given the shady atmosphere of Verdanheim, whilst he was in the country, Renard had begun to fear that something in its air or soil or food could have marked him. He remembers childhood stories of witless boys who stumbled into parallel realms, where they discovered empty dining rooms and tables spread with incredible banquets. Innocently hungry, the boys would partake — and from that moment, be bound to that realm, barred from returning home, made into playthings or slaves for the natives, and even if they assimilated and secured some hard-won semblance of respect, it was clear that they were different, and that their hearts never truly belonged there. Horrific stories, Renard had always thought.

Ho! Were I one of those lost boys, I would see the empty seats and throw all the food to the floor! I would so abash this realm’s kings, that they would admire and release me! I would become so powerful in their culture, by echoes of me they would change all their ways! That was how he bragged, as a child.

He could take relief that no, crossing into Verdanheim did not physically bind his soul to it like some fairy realm, but as these thoughts skim under his mind, all he can feel is that persistent rage.

He stops his horse a short ways inside a salt flat and dismounts. The dry, cracked earth extends to the horizon, rimmed along its circumference by a perfect crown of tall, jagged mountains. The black night sky, thick with stars, watches the world so dispassionately.

Seated on the dirt at the base of a mountain, Renard slams his fist into the ground.

Why is such scum as Verdan rewarded!

A man who would even consider enslaving another, and who would callously toy with their weaknesses as Verdan did to him, deserves to feel so impotent and loathed that they would not dare even look at another human being without first kneeling to suck their toes. They should feel, always, at the mercy of their moral betters, who may kick their face and stomp their head, and they should say ‘thank you!’ to have even this regard, for until they are offered mercy, it is exactly that regard they deserve. Verdan should be a snivelling leper, confused in his hubris as to why he can just never do right, be liked, or be happy!

He should not have the composure or the control to arbitrarily do whatever he wants. He should not be happy. He should not be securing allies in foreign kingdoms. He should not have gotten his body back! He should have to be damned to live with himself, knowing that he is a horrible person who deserves every loss and misfortune fate would cast upon him! That so many people are better than him who detest him! That it’s his fault for being wicked! That is what threatening someone so utterly at his mercy should have got him!

That he got anything good for that — it is just wrong.

Renard punches the ground two, three more times. His soul screams with the desire to take Verdan’s letter of introduction, rip it up, piss on it, and let the consequences of Verdan’s villainy be forever set, simply to disallow this scoundrel from getting what he wants.

But Renard then punches himself in the head, knowing that he cannot do this. Because he is the man who traced the steps of a real hero of Lacren, who boldly claimed he would secure it glory, and who is inescapably one of its knights loyal to the will of the Queen. Defy that, and where can he go? What can he do? Lie until he is nothing? Hope a new master would take him, and then what? With Kingslayer binding him, he would as well kill himself.

Were Isen in that same situation, he would have been so relieved that a positive solution existed for everybody. He would not be spitefully thinking to advise the Queen to dismiss Verdan as cruel and worthless. The disparity between the heroic position he has been cornered into and the vindictive wretch he really is presently is great. It is truly always great. But betraying the grace afforded to him to perhaps elevate himself, or at least mimic a saint of greater calibre well enough that nobody minds his private nature, would be massively stupid, and betraying his own capacities.

Stars in the barren night sky shine high above, beyond reach. Pleione called them this: Reminders of how much God loved us.

Renard shouts in grieving frustration, tears streaming down his face as he beholds the sight. The profound unfairness of the world asserts itself to him keenly in this moment. If an era did exist when God lived on this land and adored everyone, why couldn’t Renard have lived then? What did he do to deserve the misfortune of existing now, when the only light in the world is so tauntingly far away, and all that happens around him feels so tainted and horrible? Abandoned and left in the charge of a monster who does not care a lick, and in fact hates every soul.

It’s not fair. None of it is fair.

Renard clenches his teeth and wipes his face, glad for the privacy of this emotional outburst, but still embarrassed to be having it at all. Little makes him feel more weak than crying instead of acting — Renard imagines that true of all men. He yanks Verdan’s letter out of his satchel, allows himself the anger of again considering destroying it, and hisses a sigh through his teeth as he shoves it back unmolested into the satchel and mounts his horse.

Unfair, unfair, so the world hates him, it is unfair — but that is why there is power in getting what you can with the hand that you have. Renard spits a sigh as this calm yet bitter resolve settles over him.

There’s little to do but go forward on the decent path he is on.

Renard cracks the reins, and departs the flat.