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Rendall likes to say it was love at first sight.
It is simpler that way. Easy to laugh off and pass as a joke. Easy to push into the back of his mind and pretend that real relationships aren’t messy and complicated.
Jae is a scoundrel and a thief, just like him, and exactly as loud, brash and outgoing. Between two people like that, falling into bed together is not just an expected outcome, it is inevitable.
The problem starts when next, they fall into each other.
Him and Jae are satellites, meant to orbit other objects, but never come into contact. It is all fun and games between them, because it has to be. Because to wholly give into the gravitational pull of another is to crash into their surface, and that can result in nothing less than disaster.
He doesn’t know much about princesses, having never met one. He knows enough about people of the streets to know Jae is not one, though. She has the grit of someone desperate for a chance at not just survival, but at living a real life, and willing to work for it. All the same, it is none of his business where she really comes from. Growing up, he learned that the past only matters insomuch as to whether it can tell you how likely someone will stab you in the back—and he is a good enough judge of character to know that the secrets Jae is keeping are of a different kind.
The problem is, he wants to know. He wants to know more than the warmth of her body, the melodic ring of her laughter, the charm of her quick wit and clever mouth.
Jae does not want to be known, though, and she is upfront about it, even as she ostentatiously goes through his drawers.
Ren tells himself that this is fine by him.
It’s not that he does not know how to ask, or how to bare his own vulnerability for another person, no, of course not. He simply has no time for romantic entanglements; overseeing a galactic imperium is no easy task, after all, even with the help of his retinue. He lets the sleeping dogs lie.
Jae is very insistent on putting the hounds on his trail, though.
It still takes him some time to notice. Her request for a precious gift comes as no surprise, Jae never hid her voracious appetite for riches and luxury. Neither does the fact that even after she begins peppering the Lord Commander’s quarters with little personal trinkets, she refuses to sleep in them. The fierce desire for independence is something he understands very well.
Then, once she starts marking her territory openly and publicly, he actually enjoys her antics. It is endearing, in a way, how she stakes a claim on him without a hint of subtlety. It reminds him of the shenanigans he and his siblings got up to in their childhood: the way Lydia drew little hearts around her and her crushes’ initials, how Kian would play pranks over stolen vox comms.
But it is frustrating as well, and it begs the question why. Eventually, something has got to give. Jae wants to keep him while refusing to let herself be kept, and Rendall is not the kind of man who takes one-sided deals.
Fortunately, Jae is not obstinate about it. Once he asks, she answers readily.
I want them to know that their master has chosen me, a smuggler and a thief, she tells him, as if their master is not a smuggler and a thief himself.
I am not some embarrassing secret to be hidden away from so-called ‘decent’ people.
It is that simple, and it explains everything. At the same time, it poses even more questions.
He must have gotten swept away in the romantic notion of a brave and adventurous princess from a far-away planet, after all. Otherwise, he would have noticed the hidden traces of long-buried self-loathing, of envy and contempt for the powerful and important.
Every now and again, there is a little voice at the back of his head that urges him to delve deeper into the topic, to explore what this means for their relationship and their feelings for each other, but he refuses to. It is enough that he knows exactly what to do and say to keep Jae’s anxieties at bay.
To keep Jae at arm’s length.
There is no need to complicate things between them further.
—
It works for a while, until Jae’s mask slips and shatters in Commorragh.
Rendall carefully puts the pieces back together and places it in her hands.
—
Jae wavers after that. Even after he reassures her of his affection no matter the guise she takes, she continues picking at the mask like it’s a scab that she can’t make her mind up whether to rip off or not.
The choice is hardly his to make, so Rendall contends with only watching at first. He was never good at sitting on the sidelines, though. Eventually, he starts pushing, and it doesn’t take Jae long to catch on and confront him about it.
—
“Are you mocking me, shereen?” she asks one day, her tone at the edge of hostility.
Rendall assumes the most innocent expression he can muster.
“Whatever do you mean, queen of my heart?”
The corners of Jae’s mouth turn downwards, and she crosses her arms over her chest.
“This!” she huffs in frustration. “Your demeanour towards me!”
She extends her hands towards him, to grasp at his collar, or to strangle him perhaps, but then drops them to her sides as her shoulders slump.
“I said it before, didn’t I?” she tells him bitterly. “I don’t want my heart broken… and I refuse to be a toy, a bird to keep in a gilded cage for your amusement!”
Rendall sighs theatrically. His performance ruffled her feathers—just as it meant to.
“You misunderstand me.” he drops to one knee in front of her, and Jae’s eyebrows shoot up. “I am merely playing my part, my queen…” he catches one of her hands and brings it to his lips, “...that of your humble servant.”
Jae frowns at him.
“You are making fun of me,” she accuses sharply.
“A little bit,” he admits with a charming smile as he raises. “All in good spirit, though.” he holds out his hand to her, and, after a moment, Jae hesitantly places her palm in his.
“I enjoy your company, Jae.” he declares, his expression turning serious. Jae takes a sharp intake of breath. “More than I…” he hesitates before continuing, “More than I expected to like anyone,” he concludes. “And you seem to enjoy mine very much as well.”
Jae affirms it with a jerky nod of her head.
“But I don’t think you quite know what you want from me, or from your life.” he states matter of factly. Jae opens her mouth, but he silences her with a finger to her lips. “And that is alright,” he assures her, “but I can’t… I don’t want to commit to something half-hearted.”
Something shifts in Jae’s expression. Her gaze turns softer, and she nods.
“So until you figure it out, you are to be my queen,” he declares solemnly, “and you need to commit to your role.”
Jae blinks at him, then bursts into laughter.
“Oh, shereen!” she giggles. “You really had me worried there for a moment.”
She wipes away a tear of joy, then nods again, this time more jovially.
“Then, if I shall be your queen… I never told you to get off your knees, did I?” she asks devilishly. “What kind of servant acts without his sovereign’s order?”
Rendall bows and drops back down to kiss her belly.
“As my queen commands.”