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Renarin often wonders if he'll ever feel comfortable in his own skin, or if he'll spend the rest of his life feeling slightly out of place, slightly uneasy, slightly worried that he's said too much or not enough or both somehow.
When he's with Bridge Four, like he is tonight, it’s better. So, so much better than with any other group of people he's ever been around, and for that, he's eternally grateful.
But also maybe a little bitter.
They accept him, and they love him, despite his many flaws, and that's wonderful. But would it be too much to ask for someone to love him because of the things others ridicule him for, and not despite them? Is it crazy to imagine that he'll find someone who appreciates the way his mind works or understand how difficult it's been to live up to even a fraction of the expectations placed on his shoulders?
Adolin loves him, obviously, but sometimes Renarin wonders if Adolin really understands him. He thinks Adolin tends to disregard the things people say about him too easily. When the other Brightlords had begun to mock Renarin's seizures as a child, Adolin had told them off. He’d said they were idiots to question Renarin's strength or courage. Renarin had tried to listen to his brother, and he'd even attempted a few times to learn how to wield a proper sword. It had never worked. His seizures back then had made it far too dangerous, and Zahel had demanded he stop before he got seriously injured. So in the end, Adolin had been wrong. Renarin wasn't strong enough to wield swords or go to battle, at least not like his father or brother. His own body had fought against him at every turn, and he'd been unable to overcome it.
So when Adolin insists that Renarin is just as good as anybody else, he wonders if his brother says that because he truly appreciates the things he is skilled at, or because he's just more willing to look past Renarin's failures then most.
Renarin sighs, and leans further into the wall he's propped against. He's been here all night, sitting in a circle around a heating fabrial with the rest of Bridge Four, listening to Teft and Rock exchange humorous stories. Teft mainly talks about his time in the army, leaving out any mention of childhood or the firemoss. He steers conversation away from what Renarin knows he'd rather not talk about, and the men let him. Rock, though, talks about life back in the peaks. He always has something more to say, some strange tradition of the Horneaters that makes Renarin smile and the rest of Bridge Four laugh so hard they cry.
On nights like these, Renarin tends to be silent. He used to get asked all the time if he was alright, or if he was feeling well. So many people take silence to mean anger or exhaustion or frustration. For Renarin, silence is safe. If he doesn't say anything, he can't mess up in conversation. He won't have to make painful small talk and agonize later about whether or not he said the right thing. Plus, he enjoys listening. More people could stand to listen instead of talking so much.
"So then," Rock was saying, "I walk, fully naked, into the pond. I stayed for- oh- maybe ten hours before anyone thought to look."
"Stormfather," Skar wheezes, "that's sick!"
There's a huge grin on Rock's face when he replies, "That was nothing. You airsick lowlanders couldn't even survive hour in the ice baths, but we used to spend whole night out there, just us and a bottle of that stuff you all call Horneater white."
Skar throws his head back and laughs, and he's joined by almost all of the men. The only one who stays silent, besides Renarin himself, is Kaladin, but that's pretty typical for the Captain. Like Renarin, he seems to enjoy listening and watching his men enjoy themselves over telling jokes and teasing.
Renarin's eyes linger on Kaladin for a split second too long. Kaladin, as if sensing Renarin assessing him, glances his way. Renarin looks away instantly, hoping Kaladin doesn't take it to be rude or overly strange. He looks back at the man, slightly embarrassed, and finds Kaladin still looking in his direction. He gives Renarin a slight smile, then looks away, settling his gaze back on Rock as he continues his story.
Though Renarin hates to admit it, Kaladin still intimidates him, same as the day he first saw him walking off the battlefield after saving Adolin and Dalinar's lives. Back then, he'd looked wild, with his long, unruly hair and a gaze that seemed to see right through people. Now, he looks far more human. The marks of starvation are starting to fade from his body, his frame less raged and his hair much thicker. He smiles more than he did while a bodyguard, though still not often, and he even exchanges the occasional awkward conversation with Renarin. Still, Kaladin is a force of nature. He is what Renarin thinks Dalinar must have been like as a young man, though Kaladin lacks the streak of cruelty Renarin knows Dalinar had.
Kaladin is the Alethi ideal, and Renarin knows that if he were a lighteyes, people would revere him just as highly as they do any of the Highprinces. Life is unfair like that. What right did Renarin have to be a prince, one of the most influential and privileged people in all the world, while Kaladin was treated like garbage by higher society. If their roles were reversed, Renarin knows that people would adore Kaladin. He is a natural leader and warrior. He is tall and strong, the model of the perfect Alethi. Even his hair is technically superior to Renarin's. He lacks the foreign genes that Renarin and Adolin received from Evi, which gave their hair golden streaks mixed in with the black. Secretly, Renarin has always liked the gold in his hair. It reminds him of his mother, whom he has so few memories of. It’s nice to have a piece of her with him everywhere he goes. The Alethi lighteyes, however, see the golden hair as a sign of inferiority. The perfect Alethi man has stark black hair, like Kaladin and Dalinar.
He wonders often if his father would rather have Kaladin as a son than Renarin.
It's a thought that he's already given too much time and energy, so he moves on, settling back into the wall and trying to pick up on Bridge Four's conversation again.
The men are still laughing, but now it's Teft telling the story. He talks about a new recruit he had years ago, a boy that didn't even know how to make his own bed. Everyone laughs harder as Teft goes on, talking about the boy's lack of "real world skills," and how they used to put him on dish duty because he'd never done his own dishes back home. Renarin blushes slightly at their laughter, hoping none of them think about the fact that, being royalty, he had also never made a bed or washed a dish in his life before joining them.
It's nice that they don't think of me as royalty anymore, at least.
For the first couple of months, Bridge Four had walked on egg shells around him. They'd refrained from making jokes about anything even mildly inappropriate while he was in earshot. He'd overhead a lot of their conversations anyway. They had been much funnier when he wasn't there.
Now, their filter has almost completely worn off. The only time they ever address Renarin's status is when Lopen makes a particularly crude joke, to which someone will respond not in front of the prince. He's extremely grateful that they've stopped fearing him, since there was never anything to fear in the first place.
Though Bridge Four was not made up of perfect people, it was made up of people who were trying. They got things wrong sometimes. They occasionally made Renarin feel like he was an outsider or taunted him a little too harshly. But he'd never met a group of people that had genuinely tried for him.
So until he found someone that could love him because of his oddities, he'd settle for these men who'd done their very best to care for him despite it all.