Renaer vs Atka - Take 1

Fuck Willard, I thought bitterly as I began to march from the property I had been raised at since I was 14 years old. Willard shouldn’t talk that way to a guard anyway–isn’t that above his status or pay grade or something? I was all huffed up. And really, it had nothing to do with that servant of the house Willard anyway. He spoke to me like that in private all the time; we had a nice rivalry thing going. I don’t talk to a lot of people outside the planning room, and even then my purpose is not my tongue, it is my presence behind Dagult Neverember, the one and only.
 
I made the silent, conscious decision that I should just get to Waterdeep before looking for any kind of tracking. Renaer’s evidence of living here his whole life was going to get in the way; that, and, as much as I want to say dear old daddy Dagult was being one hundred percent forthcoming with me, I doubt he was. Why? There’s a reason why he wants me to start in Waterdeep, I just don’t know what that is yet. Because if Renaer had truly just run off, he would not have a clue where to start, and I would be holding up likenesses in Neverwinter, asking, “Have you seen this young man around?”
 
***
 
I snapped out of bed at the Yawning Portal, the dream from what seemed like moments ago burned into the back of my eye sockets. I couldn’t shake the memory of Renaer screaming at me that “Oh, my dad, you mean, the embezzler of Waterdeep?” and “I’m here to make it right.”
 
Dagult had pointed me to Waterdeep with the intent of me starting here, and I found his son…well, within a moment of my actual searching. Dagult’s reminding letter when I was with Ilanir hadn’t been suggesting that I was not searching in the right place, but that I wasn’t searching at all. As if he knew that I was in Waterdeep, that Renaer was in Waterdeep and that we were not yet united as missionees.
 
I threw off the covers, instantly cold, dressed quickly and walked outside, instantly cold again. Gods, I hate the mornings. I shivered and shook out the sleep from my arms.
 
“Oh great. We have the same problem with sleep too.”
 
Renaer’s voice was palpable into the dawn. I felt my teeth grind together and my eyes slimmed. I looked at him without turning my head. There he leaned against the building, his red locks pulled back into a lazy tail behind his head, whereas I’m sure my dark, thick ones were haphazardly stacked one atop the other down my back.
 
“Maybe we just have the same problem of you being you.”
 
“I don’t keep me awake at night,” Renaer hastened to say. “And if I’m keeping you up at night, that’s a personal problem.”
 
“Oh, go home.”
 
“Are you appealing to my rebelliousness or something? Why do you think I would just go home because you say so…yet again. I’m not going back to Neverwinter. Not until I fix this mess my dad made.”
 
“I can think of another mess your dad made that I have to fix…” I muttered under my breath.
 
“Did you say something?”
 
I closed my eyes and was instantly in the planning room with Dagult. “Did you say something?” he had asked. Instinctively, I reacted in kind and leapt in front and away from Renaer. “No! Of course not!” And quickly Renaer looked at me as if he knew that 1) I was lying, and 2) he didn’t care enough to argue.
 
That face. Dagult shared so much of that expression when planning things with his allies. I could feel in my gut if someone was lying to me, but I guess Neverember men wore it on their faces.
 
“What are you staring at me like that for? Are you asleep with your eyes open?” he asked, penetrating my thoughts.
 
“You wish, and I wasn’t staring,” I said and sighed.
 
“Atka, you still are,” Renaer waved a hand in front of his own face. “Stop it.”
 
“You just… I miss home. I’ve been traveling most of my life and I’d like to have time to stop and do what I want–”
 
“Did I miss something? Are we bonding?” After an awkward, tense silence, he spoke up again, “You know, you really are something. I’ve gathered enough information to know that you played around with this crew that we found Floon with for what? A ten day at best, and you call them friends? And now you open up to me about one of your deepest wants of ‘not having enough me time’?”
 
My expression didn’t change. “So, what? Are you saying that those people who saved your scrawny ass, and got Floon out of danger, should not be considered my friends?”
 
“I’m saying that from what little I’ve seen, you have questionable boundaries.”
 
I scoffed, cocking my hip out and flicking my tail around the waist. “You’re just saying that because you don’t like that I like your dad.”
 
“Love.”
 
“What?”
 
“I’m saying that because I don’t like that you love my dad. Atka, that’s like me… loving your mom with your dad and you still there and very much a part of the picture.”
 
I grit my teeth. “You don’t know shit about my family, and it’s not the same.”
 
“How?”
 
“You don’t know what he’s like when we’re alone together.” I said, confidently. Renaer grinned as if he had already won something. He strode over to me, leaned up to whisper in my ear, making my eyebrows want to bury my eyes…
 
“But… I’ve seen when he’s in public with you. He doesn’t love you. And I think you know it, Miss Secret.”
 
I turned my head slightly to be cheek to cheek with the boy I thought was a coward, and who now, I could see, was clearly not afraid of me. “Shut up.” I whispered back. “Or I will drag you home by the ear, and it’ll be the longest 15 day trip to Neverwinter you’ve ever had.”
 
His grin broadened. “That’s not a denial. Gotcha, didn’t I?”
 
“I said ‘Shut up.’”
 
He took two steps back, looked me up and down, and shrugged. “I can see why he wants someone like you standing behind him in the war aftermath, but why do you run his errands? Fetching me? Don’t you have some sort of pride?”
 
“Shut. Up.” My tail was squeezing my waist as my tension grew. If I killed Renaer… my happily ever after may never be realized, and I would never hear the “Thank you, Atka. You’re enough” that I deserve.
 
“Is that all you have to say?”
 
“I’m going to bathe. And if you follow me, and don’t shut up, I’ll tell your father I found you in a hot springs with an ogre.” I flipped my hair, hearing him laugh a bit to prove to me he was unphased, and walked away. It didn’t matter if he won or I won… because now, I began to doubt…