Renaud swallowed as Cera winked at him, a sudden fire struck in his chest. He had read about these feelings in books and seen these moments portrayed on stages and heard them sung in opera halls around his home country. He had never felt them himself, his life consumed with revolution and war for as long as he could remember and a marriage forced upon him before he was ready or willing.
There was also the issue that all those stories, all those songs and operatic sonatas had been between or about a man and a woman. His entire life was structured around that dichotomy, that seemingly unshakable relationship between men and women that likewise strictly defined the possible relationships between men themselves. His religion had stressed this relationship, though he had admittedly possessed a distant relationship with his religion for years due to some complex relationships between new ideas presented in his country and the rigid tradition of the religious leaders of his time. Still, the ideas and ways of life seemed burned into the foundation of who he was.
These forces, these feelings and those societal factors tugged him in opposite directions as Cera gave Renaud a confident wink. There was also the ring on his finger, but that gave Renaud less pause than other concerns. His marriage was over, ended by a phenomenon no different from death as far as his wife would be concerned. Still, these feelings were brand new for the young soldier, and wrong by every metric he had ever known. So when Cera gave him a wink, Renaud cleared his throat and stiffened his spine. He pretended not to notice even as his soul caught in his throat.
Renaud took his cloak with a polite smile. "Thank you, my friend." What a loaded word. "If I have need, I shall use it with confidence. No time to fret over appearances, wouldn't you say?" An ironic phrase, perhaps playfully Freudian given the circumstances.
His tone had certainly acquired a new edge - not an aggressiveness, but a sort of partial retreat to perhaps a more professional demeanor. "No, I would never impose so much as to assume you had a place to offer me and certainly not without compensation. It is kind enough for you to offer a future place. I am in your debt."
"I feel perfectly well enough Sir. Please, lead the way." He hung Cera's coat, folded, over his arm as he presumably began to follow Cera away from the Spire.
