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Interlocking
Chapter Twenty Two: Promise
"He swallows thickly, his voice a low hum between them. 'Are you scared?'" - Krem and Harding find each other in a world torn apart. A story told in brief glimpses.
Krem is panting and sweat-covered when he looks up to find the Inquisition forces milling into the recently captured Griffon Wing Keep. He sits on a fallen column, the head of his maul resting on the ground between his knees so that he leans against the shaft. He blinks in the blinding sun, tries to steady his breathing. Bodies of the Venatori agents are still warm and bleeding out in the keep's courtyard.
Bull is not far, inspecting the rest of the Chargers and checking in with the Inquisitor.
Krem sees Harding coming up the worn and sand-covered stairs into the courtyard. She is walking beside Knight-Captain Rylen, her regiment of scouts trailing behind her. They stop just upon entering the courtyard and Rylen takes his leave, moving to the Inquisitor across the sun-filled square. Harding's back is to Krem then, as she directs her scouts, and swiftly, the dozen or so men and women disband with their orders.
Harding sighs and Krem can see the slump of her shoulders from where he sits, exhausted. He swallows, wants to call out her name, but she is already turning.
She catches sight of him, bloodied and bruised, but with a wide, brilliant smile spreading across his cheeks.
She feels her breath leave her suddenly, and the harsh clench of her heart that had not left since the night before finally starts to relieve itself.
They simply share gazes for several moments, the sun and the motion and the sounds of the courtyard lost to them.
Harding remembers to breathe.
"So, tomorrow's the siege." Krem's voice is a low whisper in the night. He stands with Harding before her tent. He holds her hands in his.
She looks up at him, her smirk heavy with false bravado. "Care to make another bet?"
Krem laughs, shaking his head. "No thanks. I've learned my lesson."
Some small amount of genuine warmth finds its way into her smile at his laugh.
His own grin slowly fades as his eyes drift off past her shoulder. "Don't think Adamant's going to be quite like the others anyway."
Harding looks down to their joined hands and listens to the steady silence of the sleeping keep around them. "I never thought we'd be fighting Wardens. It doesn't seem right."
Squeezing her hand in his lightly, Krem answers her with calm words. "Not about 'right', love." There is sadness in his voice that Harding wants to cradle to herself.
She sighs and looks back up to him. "I've seen too many good men die. I don't want to see any more. But I'll do what I must. For the Inquisition. For my scouts." She cocks her head and watches him in anxious need. "For you. And for us."
He swallows thickly, his voice a low hum between them. "Are you scared?"
She is quiet for a while, enough for Krem to pull her to him and hold her head against his sternum, one hand threading through her hair. He hears her exhale slowly against his armor.
"Not…not for myself, no," she begins. She pulls her head from its rest against him and looks up at him, her fingers curling into the leather guards of his arms as they lay wrapped around her. "It's just that…I've never gone into anything like this with so much to lose."
Krem can only nod, can only think of the blood and the fear and the silent anguish he has seen on his comrades' faces before. He remembers the night the Chargers lost Slickwit. The sight of her blood-drenched fingers held tight in Grim's hands as he holds them to his chest, shaking with the sobs. The slow, halting breathes that raked along her lungs as Dalish knelt beside them shaking her head and Bull stood watching, fists clenched at his sides. Krem remembers the spasms that wracked Slickwit's body as she spluttered her last goodbyes, coughs splashed in blood. The heavy, growing silence as the Chargers watched helplessly.
Krem remembers what it means to lose someone.
He holds Harding just a bit tighter, his voice a ragged croak that betrays him. "I'll be watching you."
Harding shakes her head, her lips caught between her teeth. "We both know that's not what's going to happen tomorrow." Her smile is shaky but strong. "Like you said, we each have a job to do. And I know we'll get it done. I know we'll see each other when it's all over." She swallows tightly and watches the furrow of his brow at her words. "I'll be fine." She exhales a breath and laughs at herself. "We'll be fine."
Krem's eyes are dark, his breath quick in his chest, when he leans down to cradle her against him, his cheek falling upon her hair. He does not let her go. "I'll be watching you," he repeats, surer, louder, as though to convince himself.
She smiles into the cool metal of his armor. "I know," she breathes softly.
But she remembers what war feels like in the quick heat of the flames, the bellowing roars that drown her own thoughts, the sharp tang of blood and ruined flesh that floods her nostrils.
She knows that they haven't a chance if they are each distracted by their need for the other.
And she also knows that Krem needs this embrace. So she holds him silently, and tightly, and with the heavy whisper of dread spreading through her chest.
The first thing Krem sees is fire. Bright and quick and swallowing the keep in a dark, hollow promise. He nods to Bull, and shakes hands that are heavy with promise and trust. He watches the Qunari head off with the Inquisitor. He rallies the Chargers in a war cry that seems lost in his own heartbeat.
He gives one last look behind him where he knows Harding and her scouts lay in wait to reinforce the battlements once they are taken. He cannot see her from where he is. Cannot keep his promise.
He swallows down that heavy trepidation and turns to look back at the looming keep before him. All through the air he can hear screams and howls and unearthly rending.
They advance.