krempuff | [mid September]

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[mid September]

There had been no deliberate idea to avoid Hild, it had simply been something that had happened. They lived full lives, and had their own circles to run in. And, there was the whole business that Krem wasn't entirely sure that he ought to seek Hild out. Eowyn had assured that she had seemed pleased with their night together, but second hand knowledge was not the same as being deliberately sought out. There was, of course, the whole mess of things with Noah as well, and not quite knowing where to stand between the two of them.

He terribly disliked not knowing where to stand with people.

Now, though, he knew where she lived, and while it did seem a bit of a strange course of actions, he thought it might be a smart one to see where they at least stood on things. He needed to know, at least, if what had happened had been just that--a thing that had happened, and then he could put it to the back of his mind--or if there was some intention there that he might need to consider.

It was a good thing there was a liquor store on the way from his apartment to hers. He hoped Hild liked whiskey.

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"I've been well," Krem said, and smiled. He moved, putting an arm out to make sure that the elevator door stayed opened for the both of them. It was good to know, as well, that he improved her mood or day to any degree. He hoped that it would stay that well.

"I made a new friend."

"Yes?" She smiled her thanks and waited until he had joined her in the little car to press the button for her floor. Leaning back against the wall, she gave him a curious look.

"Who is? Is this a good friend?" She was teasing, referencing their conversation a few weeks earlier, in Semele's. Curious as she was about this friend, and why Krem was bringing him or her up, Hild did not expect him to answer that if he did not wish to.

"Would you like me to take a bag?" he said with a soft chuckle, offering his forearms as means to bear her burden if she wished. He should have offered in the first place, he realized; it would have been the gentlemanly thing to do. Though, to be fair and honest, he was not a gentleman.

"I--we are becoming so, yes," he said, quiet and honest. His cheeks flushed. "That is part of why I wished to come and speak with you, actually. Besides simply wishing to be in your company."

The bags were light and not that much of an encumbrance, but men liked to be useful and Hild hardly minded. She passed along a canvas bag of fruit and vegetables with a grateful smile and her thanks.

Hild considered his words with a slight frown of thought. "Is it-- Are you nervous?" she asked. It was no small thing for Krem to have come home with her that night, she knew, and she knew it must be, in some measure, different with any person he might have in the future.

He took the groceries from her in the same had that had the bottle of whisky, so they each had a hand free, and smiled softly that she had acquiesced the assistance. He moved over to stand beside her, casual and near, their shoulders nearly brushing.

"A bit," he admitted. "He knows about me. But it's still--"

He looked down at the liquor in his hand and narrowed his eyes a little bit, critical of himself. "I actually came to talk about us, though? I don't mind talking about him, after, just..."

"Oh."

That did surprise her. The elevator dinged and the door slowly pulled open, but for a moment she did not move.

She had thought -- Was she mistaken? -- that Krem's world was enough alike to hers that there would not be a misunderstanding. Clearly she could not have been too off in her reasoning. Krem had found some man to be intimate with; he would not have done this if he honestly thought himself betrothed in some way to Hild. Not Krem. But what was there to speak of then, of them?

Whatever it was, it probably was not suited for the elevator. Hild pushed herself off the wall and hesitated, not wanting to give the impression that she was moving away from Krem.

"We talk inside," she said with a warm smile.

Krem was half way to explaining himself, right there in the elevator. But then they were on her floor, and she was stepping out, and he stepped along with her after her initial hesitation.

He knew how it sounded, and he hadn't quite meant it like that, but he wasn't sure quite how else to phrase it--not with their mutual language barriers. He could articulate himself about the subject in Tevene, moderately, but he wasn't sure how long even his mother tongue would sustain him on a subject he'd barely ever spoken about. She would understand him, but what of his slang and his accent, and a hundred other things?

He followed her quietly to her apartment and, inside the door, inhaled the smell of herbs deeply.

A second harvesting of lavender lay, heavy and soft purple, spread out in her kitchen, taking up most of the counter space and bathing the apartment in its soothing scent. She left one bag by the doorway and took the bag of produce from Krem. She made a space for it alongside the drying herbs, leaving the unpacking for later. From the cabinet, she procured two glasses, for drinking the whisky as she had suggested, but she set them too on the counter and paused there.

"I think you are nervous, Krem," she said plainly. "Please do not be nervous with me. It is okay to say what you are thinking."

He opened the bottle to let it breathe, but set it by the glasses. The smell of lavender was pungent and overwhelming and calming. He let it wash over him and sooth his nerves, trying to figure out how to speak with her about what he wished, what he wanted to know.

"I quite enjoyed our night together," he said, bold and up front about it, and then, equally so, "I was curious if it was a single offer or something we might do again, on occasion, if we both found it enjoyable."

She smiled, happy with the directness of his speech and his words. A little formal, complicated, but this was not a bad thing.

"Yes, I hope we do it again, if you like," Hild said. "If your other friend is okay with this. Is he-- Some use these words boyfriend and girlfriend. Dating. These are not things from my time, but many here use them. Does he? Does he wish to be your boyfriend?"

Krem shrugged a little, honest and speculative at the idea. He looked a little sheepish. "He comes from a place like Darrow, a modern one. They seem to do things like that? I'd never heard the term before, until Eowyn said it the other day."

He shifted his hand to his arm, where the stitches were still in his arm from taking her blade. He still felt a little childish for reacting the way he had.

"We don't do that back in Tevinter, though some are..." He gestured vaguely, then said, slipping into Tevene, "Attached." He didn't have a better word for it. "Not betrothed, or wedlocked. They will still be open with themselves. I don't think people in these modern places like that very much."

Quietly, a little something inside of Hild curled up in fear and dread. The lay of the land seemed much more uncertain suddenly and she worried the worst might arise.

"We do not--" She tried to speak carefully, for even though Latin was easier than English, she knew her speech was not exactly the same as his. "There is marriage. And then there is everything else. If two people wish to only be with each other, then that is what they will do. But most of the time it is very... casual."

Krem nodded, looking down at his boots because he worried that he'd said the wrong thing. He seemed to be doing that quite a lot, it seemed, and he wasn't entirely sure how to stop himself from it.

Slowly, he tried to pick it apart. "In Tevinter, everything is casual. But marriage is political, or for power, or advancement." He shook his head a bit. "Sex is private, but it's part of everything? It's hard..."

He sighed a little. "It's very hard to explain, especially since I never--. I don't want to upset anyone. It was easiest with you--you were interested. I was. Am, still, if it comes up for us again. But my new friend makes it complicated, I think."

Hild was quiet, fixing Krem with a thoughtful look as she decided on her words. It felt a little as though he were shifting the blame, if there even were blame to shift, but the end result was the same. Hild would lose, again.

Her smile was small, not pleased but kind. "Do what you think is right, Krem. Right for you. This new friend. He makes you happy. So be with him. You are my friend, also. Nothing changed that."

Though it was not in her tone, there was a small bite of rejection in her words and, he thought, perhaps in her eyes. Krem was a little surprised by that. He didn't really know what he thought was right. Telling her, because they had been intimate and because they were friends, had seemed right. Telling her, because their night together populated his thoughts, had seemed right.

He turned to the bottle of whiskey and poured them each a little, because he needed it for himself.

She moved a step closer, just enough to let her reach out and comb her fingers lightly through his hair. That probably was not the right thing to do, but Hild did not know the right course of action to take. She had never been in a situation such as this or even imagined it could happen.

"What do you hope for, when you come here?"

Krem swirled the whiskey in his glass, tilting his head slightly into her touch. His eyes slipped closed, and he could feel his spine relax slowly.

"Well, I certainly wasn't hoping to muck things up. But I seem to be getting quite adept at sticking my foot in it," he said, trying for jovial and hitting the mark somewhat with how quietly he spoke. He took a sip of his drink. It burned down his chest slowly.

"I wanted to see you. I wanted to share your company for a while." He looked up at her, considered her for a moment. He gave her a soft, almost sheepish smile. "I might have briefly thought the whiskey might make me a more appealing candidate for a second chance in your room, or at least facilitate us laughing about what an awful, clumsy partner I make. That might have been a very foolish thought."

His words spurred a laugh out of her, a soft giggle she was quick to quiet and cover with her hand. But her eyes sparkled with fondness though she hid her smile.

"You are not an awful, clumsy partner," she said firmly. Taking up her glass, Hild stared at the amber liquid, letting herself sober a little.

"It is not a foolish though," Hild said quietly, looking up. "But I do not want your friend angry with you. Or with me."

He chuckled as well, though it was a little quieter. And that was the crux of it, he supposed, to have found someone so young and so similarly inexperienced as him and from such a different place. He could still be with Hild, there was no reason he couldn't. But it seemed a situation would no one would win in, after the fact.

It ached, ultimately. He had come, hoping for settlement. All he had was a wash of emotion, like inky spilled on parchment. He was always going to have a stain, no matter how he tried to blot it out.

"It's a little foolish," he said, almost wistful, and leaned against her counter, "precisely because I don't know if he'd be mad. And so I don't dare risk it. Because I'm a coward."

It was not the boldest of choices, but Hild could not fault him openly for being a coward. Not when she knew sometimes to cower, to stand by, to stay silent to get what she wanted. What she did not want at all but what was needed. But his dissatisfaction was so clear that she worried for him. It was not unhappiness, but the conversation would be easier if there were less worry and more freedom.

"Do you fear the loss of him," Hild said, "if you ask if a thing makes him mad?"

"Yes," Krem admitted. It was all new and fresh and wondrous, as being with Hild had been, but in entirely different ways. Noah knew how to find words for things, how to look when Krem wouldn't have bothered; Hild knew her comfort and what she liked and how to be comfortable with others, had helped Krem be comfortable with himself.

"More so, I'm worried he'll judge me." He shrugged softly. "Losing him would be painful, but only for a little while. But he seems like a good young man, and honest. I don't want his upbringing to make him think less of me."

Hild took a sip of the whiskey, letting the pleasant burn fill her mouth and loosen her throat. People watched and judged her always, at home if not in Darrow. She knew how to manipulate those thoughts, and also how to let them slide over her, like drops of water on a duck's wing. It was not so easy for others; it had not been easy for her, at first.

"If he is honest, you must be honest also," she said. "Like approves of like. Do you hide from your war band, your other warriors, for fear they think you a danger? Men always judge. It is better to know their thoughts than to fear them."

"I lie to some of the men, yes," he said, honest. Not all of them knew that he Passed, just as not all of them knew that the Iron Bull was a spy. He trusted them with his life, but even so, there were some things that you did not tell people, even when they had to keep a shield at your back.

He contemplated the whiskey with great deliberation. He did not want to suppose it was easier for someone like Hild, or like Dorian, who knew what they were and could be forthright about that. He didn't know what it was like for Hild back home, but he knew what it meant for Dorian to love men, and the dangers of that in Tevinter; they were similar to the dangers of being an invert.

Darrow was not home. He licked his lips and hummed vaguely. "If he weren't mad or upset at the idea, would there be a chance of us again...?"

He did not take her messaging precisely, and that was the fault of the language, her middling grasp of it. Of course you did not share all your secrets, even with those who were closest to you. This seemed natural to Hild, who held her tongue to protect those she cared about most. But what they needed to know, what affected them, needed to be said, even if difficult.

But full clarity was not necessary, as Krem seemed to have found what he needed, in his own thoughts, to make asking these difficult questions a realer possibility. This was the better way of it, not Hild coaxing him into a decision.

Hild smiled faintly and again combed her fingers through his hair. She let her nails scrape against his scalp. "Not chance," she said. "Certainty."

Krem leaned into her touch slightly, a contented smile and general ease working over his face as her nails ran along his scalp. He shifted toward her in general, much like a cat, and sipped his whiskey some more, letting the warmth of the alcohol and her presence diffuse through him entirely.

"I do like the possibility of certainty," he said, soft and with a hint of a chuckle.

Now he just had to talk to Noah.

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[mid September]

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