Meow
In the wake of Renate being thrown together with Coris Nightblade again, the back of my mind has been trying to elucidate how she manages her rather strange (by the usual standards) lovelife.
I finally figured it out. Renate acts just like my cats.
Dream and Didi genuinely appreciate being around their people. They will lie in exquisitely uncomfortable places in the office just because we’re there. At night if Dream starts feeling lonely, he’ll wail hollowly or scratch at the bedroom door or both. He doesn’t want food, just companionship.
The thing is, though, it doesn’t particularly matter to either cat whether it’s David or me they get affection from. They assuredly know the differences between us; I’m fat, so I’ve got a better lap, but David’s knobbly (and unweakened by RSI) fingers are better for scratching cat skulls. We’re each valuable in our little uniquenesses.
Moreover, the cats have definite boundaries; they’re not indiscriminate. David and I are their people, and anyone who isn’t their people is regarded with suspicion. Dream thaws relatively quickly, Didi quite slowly; he will cuddle with our Wednesday-night houseguest, while she will barely let herself be touched. And they make perfectly clear what treatment they don’t like—more politely than most cats, but even so. Don’t touch Dream’s belly; don’t touch Didi’s paws.
But it simply doesn’t occur to either cat to be “monogamous.” A housemonkey is a housemonkey. A lap is a lap. They’d think it was weird to be required to stick to just one housemonkey, weirder still for David or I to be jealous of each other over them. There’s plenty of cat fur and cat purr for everyone.
Which is how Renate feels about love, really. There’s always more of it, and always more people to give it to. Not that she loves everyone; that would be absurd. Not that she loves those she loves the same way; everyone is different, everyone needs something different and can give back something different. But the idea that she can only “truly” love one person at a time—ridiculous.
She loves Rien, as much as that fact is killing her right now. She loves Coris, too, though neither of them has admitted it. She loves Aryk despite his maddening self-righteousness and sexism. She loves Godfrey dearly, and Kligh Darenton, and she’s even fond of stiff-necked Talos Clybourne. Of course no two of these relationships are alike. One simply can’t hug Godfrey Cuyler, and one can’t not hug lonely Rien. (Well, right now she can manage not to, as Rien lied to her and betrayed her, but they’ll work that out in the fullness of time.)
Eventually, I suspect, she’s going to inspire some jealousy, and she’s going to have a hard time understanding it. She’ll deal with it, establishing firmer boundaries if she has to, because she doesn’t want to make people unhappy. The right people for Renate, though, realize that the more love and strength she shares, the more she’s got.
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