Inevitable Drift

That night, Renard rolls in bed, Colette turned away and heaving the even, heavy breaths of sleep beside him. Though a ridiculous thing to think, there is a sense of isolation in the lumplike fullness of the bed, and in the weight that pins the covers away.

He is like a child laying soldier-straight and staring up at the ceiling, whilst a large teddy bear snuggles aside him, that he should have company, but none truly is there.

With the curtains drawn, no meditative beams of moonlight puncture the dim of the bedroom. Ghosts of a bedstand and of patterns in the white tile resolve out of the murk, useless and entrappingly familiar. Renard lugs his head upon the pillow, adjusts his grip against it.

The issues rolling in his mind are not ones he can talk away, and not ones he presently wishes to. Like rocks tumbling down a mountain, even without his intervention, they may settle of their own accord and not truly damage him much. It is more a question of how much he wishes to let those rocks damage each other, and how far is really, consciously okay to let them fall.

He does not know if his treatment towards Fidel is right. Rather, he feels a deep contradiction in how he has decided his approach that pulls against his heart like the hands of a giant, straining to rip his core in twain.

It is with guileless glee, joy, and liking that half of him regards Fidel. This half wishes only for his success and happiness, wherein he may escape the demons of his disgraced house and rebuild himself into a man whose life teems with positivity, comfort, and fellowship. Anything the boy wants, this part of Renard earnestly wishes to provide, alongside a desire to shield him from undue hurts and overwhelming experiences.

It may be in paradoxical deference to this amicable first half the second, crueller, half rises. This is the half that desires Fidel to be great, settled deep in the back of Renard’s mind and twined inexorably with memories of the Iron King, by whose auspice Renard first rose himself. Ambition hums just under Fidel’s skin, like a wildfire barely restrained from reaching and bursting and devouring whatever it clutches. That is a good hunger — a wonderful hunger — pleasant and yet familiar to Renard, that makes a very deep part of him grin.

How tragic it would be, for that flame to one day explode, incinerate his surrounds, and then wither! Renard has the honour of Fidel’s regard in this aspect, that the boy deems Renard able to refine this voraciousness into something exceptional, as Renard has done for himself. It is more than a compliment; it is an expectation. The deep part of Renard chuckles. Yes, boy, I can meet that and more. Far be me to spit upon you or I by pretending any else.

But there the doubt strikes like a lance. And the refrain comes, how worthwhile, truly, is it, to model oneself after Renard? It was only by the sheer stupid chance of meeting Colette that he began to be happy. Everything before that was pain. Is it really worth it to teach pain to somebody he likes, when the ultimate goal of that pain was to become happy? Does it not make more sense to cut out the middleman, and simply teach him to be happy? In that case, Renard is less qualified than any of the humble folk of the village. Does Fidel have any alternative drive that could justify suffering? Something that simply demands to be done to the eschewing of all other sense? A cause for these methods — what is it for?

I can’t give you a cause for greatness, but I can make you great. Satisfaction is not in greatness; satisfaction is in the cause. So what I can teach you is little but unaimed power, by which you may achieve much, but without an even fulcrum that guides, sooner or later, would greatly destroy you.

Renard sighs, pressing his fist to his forehead. He wishes he had been clever enough to articulate these words to Fidel yesterday. Then perhaps his rejection would have been more kind and more sensible, rather than making Renard seem at best inconsistent, and at worst insane.

Guilt rumbles through his chest like a tumbleweed that he may just be wasting Fidel’s time. But that deep part lingers with desire, and with complete honesty, regards the prospect of Fidel achieving happiness or success without ever reaching for greatness with incredible disappointment. Where’d the hunger go? Why would you leave? Perhaps we weren’t so alike.

Renard again sighs. Cyclical traps of the mind like these are why he does not like thinking that much. He shifts his thinking away to an issue that may be less complicated.

Arsene.

Renard flinches in bed, speared by rage and terror at the word. Nevermind. Fidel is less complicated.

But still, he has now brushed the topic, and now he must struggle to escape it as if fleeing quicksand.

Renard had not realised until that moment, when he rushed blind to sprint across air and murder the beast with a sword he did not have, how much he truly loathed Arsene. Somewhere below his mind, below his life, and in another dimension entirely, there has been percolating a second him that consists of nothing but single-minded hatred for, and need to kill, Arsene. It has been built from the memory of every pain of the Iron King, every Marion, every ghoul, and every senseless corruption of dignity he has ever seen. While Renard certainly knew he harboured these dark sentiments, he thought his relationship with Colette had numbed them ineffective, or at least sealed them inert. But now he knows that is not true. They have only been waiting, amassing like grit, that Renard would one day rip off his tamed facade and burst furious out from underneath, for that one, single, decisive moment.

‘Just leave me alone’. Renard scoffs. When an enemy makes demands from such an open position of weakness, it fires every instinct within Renard to do the exact opposite of what they say.

Kingslayer hangs on the wall over Renard’s bedside table. The weight of expectation emanating from the blade, heavy as a sergeant's stare, presses in a way it has not in years. Renard shrinks deeper into the covers, glances away, but finds an odd thread of anticipation within him that carries no fear at all.

Renard raps his fingers impatiently upon the mattress, then slides himself out of bed. His innards clench hard and black, like eels coiled around a thick bubo, the familiarity of the estate’s halls discordant against the purposeful need that has caught him. Though he knows there is no stopping himself, uncertainty rises on every step.

Renard enters his study and begins penning his report to the Queen on what happened in Ashurst. Repeating the simple facts of his outing, practised twice before, is not too hard. It is when he must recount the actual visitation of Arsene, and his supposition on what it may imply, that his quill begins to falter.

Ink drips, blotted and full, onto the page.

He takes a long breath. I am moved by the mantle of duty and opportunity, for it is expressed to me that the quarry is, by your seeming persistent efforts, harried and withered of will, and that, by this sign of frailty so queerly revealed, I am summoned at this time to your efforts, to insist the prominent inclusion of myself within your enterprise.

It feels good to get the words out. Renard reads them over, strikes them through, and writes a second message.

In the years of my craft, I must tell, here ‘twould the fair voice of prudence whisper to you, and the fine spirit of victory whisper to me, which unto you I also forward, a message of caution. Your quarry is manoeuvred to strike against you, for in the commendable success of your campaign to present, by which you have begun to corner the beast, you have, by my estimation, drawn the creature’s concern towards you, from which it has appraised rightly what faction assaults it. Verily, I tell you, ease now your push, and appear to withdraw, that it may see concession to an armistice and settle.

Thereon, I advise, let be repositioned the armies concurrent to the sending of scouts with great stealth, that the strike upon the beast be swift and total. In the absence of keen mystics, who may assure this stealth, I raise you to meditate upon the option of parley—

And if you cannot find such means to hide yourself from the beast while traversing its pit, stop now all progress in this venture, and wholly desist.

Parley! Desist! Renard beats his fist on the writing desk’s lower table and his forehead upon the upper. Sure, the presence of an anomaly in Lacren is unnerving, but what on earth is he thinking, conceding anything to the monster!

—and dismiss it utterly. Glory to Lacren and may her blood flow to perpetuity.

By your Grace, Baron of Meurille, Sir Renard Cox, esq.

Renard leans back from his desk. The urge still presses in his skull to leap up like a shrieking baboon any pull every string possible to shoot him across over twenty countries and get him into Nix as soon as tomorrow, but the sensation that he has at least done something upon this front does dull the edge just a slight. There are still questions and mysteries about the anomaly — this ‘injury’ — that may be researched here, and in telling the Queen to slow down, it feels he will be buying some time to breathe.

It feels odd to admit, but Renard does feel a twinge of commiseration and pause when he considers the total exhaustion and misery the beast expressed to him. It does not want to fight. How dare it!. But just as quickly the sure and sentimental truth reasserts itself in Renard’s heart and mind; it does not want to fight, and so long as that wish is respected, it will not shake the status quo of, rot or no rot, the mundane routines of everyday life that allow for most people peace.

Renard stares down at the desk, flexing his hands.

A creature as this, if it were inclined to, could shatter Lacren’s peace overnight.

He sighs out his nose, shakes his head, and raises himself from the desk. Well, he has finished his report and letter. The achievement does brighten his chest, just a little.

“I will await the Queen’s judgement," Renard announces to the air as he traverses the unlit halls back to the bedroom. “Then we may consider this further." Patting Kingslayer, he nods.

A quiet patter of fabric and motion catches Renard’s ear from down the hall — he looks, and glimpses a silhouette darting across the way.

“Is that Fidel?" Renard calls.

The noise quiets. Upon turning the corner, it is indeed Fidel, his expression even, but back straight as a ruler.

“Sir," he says.

“Pig’s ankles, boy," Renard exclaims. He asks what Fidel is doing wandering the halls in the middle of the night.

Seeming uncertain and somehow guilty, he says he was trying to find a privy.

“Ah, yes," Renard nods, and points him warmly down the hall with directions. Though the urge strikes to hold him and chat about inconsequential things as he goes, Renard restrains himself and lets Fidel depart. There is a definite guilt of conscience in the boy’s steps. But it is not an issue. Not interested in probing the encounter, Renard returns to bed.