Of Stolen Sweets & Mothers

Roxanne is on a mission of sorts. Her return to the estate outlying Waterdeep has been an uneventful one, but her travels kept her away longer than anticipated—unexpected, and not unwelcome, but surely the delay might've brought her son to worry.

Or not, for all she knows. The young Lord Montaret's thoughts are his own, to which she is not privy, and she feels he guards them jealously as could be. Still, she is on a mission, of sorts. Thus, she finds him quickly; she does not have her eye everywhere in the estate at once, but to those who live there, she might as well, and sussing out her child is as easy as it ever is. She finds him in the kitchen.

"Zakris." A blunt start. Perhaps she should soften with expectations. "I wish to speak with you."

***

Dinde is on break when Zak finds himself toeing into the kitchens. Perfectly timed, he might boast, having bided his time until just after lunch tea time to find it vacated. He hasn’t eaten proper since Roxanne’s departure, happily enjoying a consequence-free existence while his mother’s been away.

Only she’s lied, again. If the spoken word is law, how can she call herself the matron of the estate? A week and a half ago was just a few days, and Zak even had it in his heart to wonder. If just for a moment… just at the back of his mind as he studies in his father’s office, or checks a clock from the parlor as he writes his music, or passes his mother’s rooms and the smell of her.

She wouldn’t lie. She has. But she wouldn’t…

What starts as a blessing turns into the knot in the pit of Zak’s stomach he has to push away and remember that life is better, this way. He relishes freedom. It’s only after a long morning with Ren that he finds himself in the kitchens of a quiet estate, fishing through the cold cellar for leftover tarts and sweets purposefully stowed for guests and tea time. He bites into one and holds the others in handfuls, forgoing the plate or the basket to be quick.

The voice shudders through him like the dropping of a plate. He curses, hitting his head on the space between the wall and pantry door, and goes completely still with his stolen goods.

"Oh. Are we reserving etiquette for rich relatives and acquaintances, now? No one told me you got in.” The last part is said with even more disdain than the first, muffled by the tart between his teeth. He feels like the last person to know anything, around here. How typical. It feels like all he can say to rebuttal what feels like another lecture… and he hasn’t seen her but a minute since her return from Waterdeep. He recoils from the pantry, stuffing the rest of the pastries behind his back as he finds her in the doorway. “Talk? There’s nothing to talk about. Or Ren did it, and I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

***

"I see."

Children are to be children, she supposes—she'd probably scold him more for the poor eating if she didn't find it quietly endearing. But she should at least be stern with him for it. She gives the sweetsthief a onceover, brow knitting ever so slightly.

"Is Ren also responsible for the crumbs upon your shirt? Perhaps I should give the boy a talking to, then. I presume you have not seen him since I arrived, else you'd have been informed sooner."

***

Zak slowly starts to place the extra pastries on the pantry self behind him as she speaks. His brows pinch with the audacity to be angry she isn't more upset. A glower, a scold, something more than the usual knitting of her brow as she looks him over. He rolls his eyes, as openly and petulantly as he can muster as she finishes.

Her mention of Ren stops him. He looks down at his blouse and quickly frowns, omitting a low sound. "You missed tea time, I didn't want them to go to waste," he says, brushing them from the lace of his collar.

"Maybe you should have a talking to Ren anyway. I don't think I have much of an effect on him anymore and you make everyone squirm." he lifts his hands, now free, and makes claws of them in front of his face, wiggling his fingers menacingly. "Like a hag." That does bring an antagonistic grin to his face as he stares her down with his impression.

“Besides, he needn’t tell me. I should've known when I saw the rain clouds rolling in behind you.”

***

Roxanne's eyes narrow, and as if on cue with his comment, there is a distant peal of thunder outside. She clears her throat, and walks a bit closer.

"How dutiful of you to consider our food waste in your snacking. I'll be sure to inform Dinde of your charitable spirit, and see that leftovers are relegated to the noble soul willing to volunteer their consumption so that everyone else can eat fresher fare without worrying for our grocery expenditures."

Her fingernails tap along a counter as she slowly glides past.

"Now, what is it that you wished me to speak to the stable boy for? Or are you simply in an antagonistic mood? The boy does you the service of company often enough, I imagine your desired effect might've diminished."

***

The thunder almost makes him giggle. There's a devious sparkle in his eye like smoldering coals, a mocking and contrary color to Roxanne's own. Not even the color of their eyes can agree with one another.

He flinched when she nears, instinctively stepping back just to have his back hit the pantry shelving with a thud and thump. He withholds a wince, his head still throbbing from its earlier mishap with the door and he holds his breath, waiting for the worst. "Don't tell Dinde. I was just hungry." His voice is low, now. Cowed by the tapping of her fingers and the proximity she closes between them. His stomach turns.

He doesn't look at her now, turning his obstinate gaze aside and fixing the floor with something like a hateful look as though the ferocity of it might guard him from whatever punishment she deems to bestow upon him. He doesn't know what for, but it turns inside of him like anxiety. "Ren's the only one who doesn't tell me to run off and mind my own. And who else am I supposed to talk to? Dinde?" He laughs, bitter and joyless. The sound is sad.

"You were gone a long time and no one would say anything to me. I asked if you could be in trouble and they treated me like a child." There's silence after this, solemn and lonely.

"If you're going to punish me, just do it. I'll do whatever you want."

***

Her brow knits a little further. "Punish you?"

Tap tap. Tap tap.

"The staff tell you to see to your business because they know yours is important. Not to mention, if the Lord of the house is lingering about their station, they might be inclined towards other worries. You must recognize the weight your presence carries now."

Perhaps Armageddon was right to consider Zakris' worry for her. She wins this round, Roxanne supposes. She sighs. "You needn't have worried. I was in Silverymoon—I had need to speak to Armageddon. Far from in danger." Relatively speaking. But that had been handled, and she needn't burden her son with such concerns.

***

He stays pinned in a corner as more thunder crackles beyond the estate, still far away but enough to make the words from her mouth more dire. He frowns, refusing to look her in the eyes lest his own betray something. "Yes? Aren't you upset?" Zak almost stammers, bereft of any of other explaination to I wish to speak with you.

His expression then goes sour... losing its ferocity as his posture deflates. "Or have you nothing to say to me?" There's disapointment there, the first signs of it... "I'm not him..." he says, softly and almost inaudibly.

"Silverymoon? What did you do? Did you see anything coo-" he stops himself before the excitement can take over, his eyes already the size of saucers. Curiosity is the only rememdy for a Montaret. "A montaret is always in danger. What did you and aunt Arma talk about?"

***

Roxanne hardly catches his muttering, the words indistinct even to her hearing, but there is something in the way his shoulders sag that tugs at her heart. Why will he just not speak his mind?

The barrage of questions catches her a bit off guard, however, and she struggles with how to approach it.

"... She isn't technically your aunt, you know." Ah, yes. A natural place to begin, requiring no context; wonderfully done, Roxanne. "And remember—'danger' is that which you cannot control. A threat neatly handled is no danger at all." Memory washes back; a quiet inn, storm raging outside, the creak of floorboards under trepidatious steps. The sound of falling, the gleam of a knife striking horn. Rage, fury, blood. The smell of flesh burning. Perhaps he will have learned not to repeat her mistakes by the time it is his turn.

"I meant for a shorter visit, but I ended up caught by the weather and circumstances." More memory, unbidden. The pinch of a smile around golden eyes in the dark, mirrored by the curled corners of soft lips. The sound of laughter, and what she can feel in her hands. Back in the present, she thinks of her son, the familiar lines of his face. She can still see the child she once knew, at play in the gardens and ruining her flowers, not that she ever minded. But the eyes that refuse to meet hers belong not to that child, but to the young Lord Montaret. His father's eyes, haunting her from beyond the grave. For the first time in their conversation, Roxanne falters for a second.

"But I'm not here to talk about Arimageddon." Only a small slip. "I came to talk about you, Zakris."

***

"I don't know why you bother entertaining her so often, if she isn't family," he replies, in just as sour and offhanded. His mother spends more time with his not-aunt than with her son at their own estate, these days. It is only natural he would be curious the nature of their visits.

He listens, pressing through spite to absorb the wisdom there, however fleeting and caged behind lecture. "It's something father use to say. I use to not know what he meant." His voice is solemn but there, crackling above the sound of something cooking on a fire and wind through a forgotten window.

He finally meets her eyes, watching the distance within them and knowing she is thinking... daywalking in her own mind for just the briefest moments for him to catch her. When she meets his again he refuses to look away, fixing her with the full intensity of those dark eyes. "You're avoiding my question? Shouldn't I know something? I don't want to talk about me, or what you think is wrong with me."

***

The hand leaves the countertop to pinch at her brow in frustration. It is an excuse to banish the specter from her vision, that when she looks again, she might see her son.

"What is it you would know, Zakris? Shall I justify to you my time away? Prove its merit for your discernment?" These words do not help exorcise the revenant, and come out harsher than she means them to. "I shall spend time on what is important. That is why we are speaking. Do not presume to know my thoughts or my intentions."

***

There's a defeated shift in him, his eyes soften to study the buttons on her dress, neither looking at the other.

His hands behind his back fish for something on the shelves behind. He shrugs, and in elvish he says <"Nevermind me, then. I'll figure it out on my own as I always do."> He rights himself, letting a placid, disinterested look settle on his face. <"I don't presume to know anything, I'm only here to listen and abide by the queen's whims.">

A hand that was clasped behind his back reaches forward, placing a tart on the counter space where her hand use to be

***

When had his elvish gotten so good? A small pang of pride, mixed in with the frustration. Her eye is caught by the placed sweet, and she studies it. Another attempt to goad, perhaps.

<"Spare me the sarcasm, Zakris,"> she answers in the same tongue. <"I came only to talk, and you seem determined to make that needlessly painful. A discussion of my business isn't off the table, unless it is leveled as an accusation.">

There is a check to this move of his, she's certain. So she picks up the abandoned tart, and after a moment, takes a bite. There is a bit of silence as she chews and swallows.

<"Now, come along.">

***

It startles him that she replies so fluidly. As close to fighting fire with fire, as he supposes his mother is capable of, against him. She eyes the sweet and it takes everything he has not to smirk.

"I'm not accusing you of anything!" Hs tongue switches back to common naturally at the jump of his voice, the bewilderment clear. He sounds so young again. "I just want to feel, for once, like I'm not completely in the dark about what's happening around me. If I'm really the new lord, shouldn't I feel..." he looks at his hands now, as if grasping at something. Then he his eyes turn up at her, genuine and scared. "In control of something?"

What she does next surprises him... such a small thing... but it sets him at ease like the extending of an olive branch. He relaxes sadly. In undercommon he says; <"Yes, your majesty..."> And prepares to follow.

***

She says nothing to this, turning on her heel to depart, so Zak doesn't see the tiny smile play across her lips as she faces away. That should be one to keep in the pocket.

"If you do not think yourself beyond learning from my own wisdoms, I would impart one to you; the more control you obtain, the less you feel you have. Our hands were only made to hold so much." She leads him out of the kitchen and into the hall, making for the stairs at their end. "What worries you so about being in the dark?"

***

She leaves him, luckily, before he can summon another argument. He's never been against her wisdom, in fact, all that he is has come from her in one way or another. He lets his fingers glide on dusted surfaces, softer than a moth's wing as they tresspass the halls, listening to her voice echoing off clawfooted antiques his eyes have glazed over a thousand times in his youth. Now their sheet covered faces--resting and waiting for guests--haunt him from their rooms.

"How do I stop grasping for things I do not have? You're telling me not to swim when I'm drowing." It started when father died, this feeling. Being pulled downstream by inheritence he has only just begun to understand. He knows the trade but experience escapes him. "I just... want to feel like I'm doing something." But I'm scared.

He doesn't want to be here. Whatever she's shouldering he should take, too. Yet another part of him gnaws at the leg stuck in this political trap. Can he really still see the world if he's trapped in here? "I worry about..." you? The estate? The family? "The future."

***

She casts him a sidelong glance, studying his pensive frustration. His features brood too easily—a trait she is sorry he had to inherit from her. Still, she is grateful then that he hasn't his father's stoic face.

"The future is worth worrying about. But what I am telling you isn't to let yourself sink; only that the better you get at swimming, the higher the waves will become." Just before reaching the stairwell, she turns into an adjoining hall, taking them in the direction of the studios and garden. The hallway is dark, the wall sconces having apparently gone out. "There will always be more that you cannot control, especially in the broader world beyond your current horizons. Is that the source of your worry, or do you see expanding your sight as a remedy?"