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This isn't the first time Edgin's been in prison.
Harpers end up in a lot of places, not all of them nice. One very unpleasant evening in the dank, dark sewers of the Gate's Undercity turned into a slightly-less-unpleasant-but-still-not-exactly-great night in the bowels of Wyrm's Rock when the guards had caught him among some bodies, and no, he hadn't killed them, the place is just cursed. Feigned drunken revelry for an excuse to get close to villainous conversations became less-fake drunken revelry at his success became some time in a cell to sober up. Taking the fall for Simon once or twice when he was still getting better at stealthing away, loudly proclaiming his innocence all the while.
This is new, though. Revel's End is way up in the ass-end of nowhere, somewhere deep in the Frozenfar. The name's not for show, by the way. It's cold as the Hells here, whichever one of them's the cold one, and he can't see the people ahead of him for all the snow kicked up by the wind and their trudging feet, and his hands are shackled and chained to the people behind and ahead of him. It's the farthest he's ever gotten from Targos, from the home he'd lived in with Zia. And, for what it's worth, Edgin's said, many times, that he's wanted to see the Spine of the World, but he'd meant it the same way he means he'd like to see Waterdeep during a festival or the Moonsea at night or the wild wastes of Rashemar. You know, just traveling, in general. A nice visit with some nice food and his family at his side and then home waiting at the end of it.
It isn't waiting for him now.
For all Kira knows, he's dead. Worse, that he's left her on purpose, as though he would ever, ever do that. Forge will look out for her, he's sure, though he has less than perfect faith in the man. At least Kira'll learn Three-Dragon Ante, he thinks, and even in his own head, the words are less wryly confident than he'd wanted, more nervous and shaking and a little bit completely fucking terrified.
"Hey," Holga says from behind him, cuffing the back of his head as best she can with her own hands tied. "Relax."
"Relax?" Edgin hisses back, nearly stumbling as the long chain of people moves forward before he's ready for it. "Relax? Holga, do you see the prison we're being brought to?"
This is the first time Holga's been in prison.
To be clear, it's not the first time someone's attempted to arrest her. It's just the first time they've succeeded in dragging her here before she broke her chains and broke the person chaining her for the attempt. People didn't tend to push the issue after she'd broken a bone or two, if they were even awake in the first place.
"Of course I see it," she responds, annoyed. "We've slept in worse places."
Edgin laughs. It's not a how-funny laugh, or a look-at-Kira-being-cute laugh, or even a slightly-delirious-with-bloodloss laugh. It's a new sound, and one Holga really doesn't like. He sounds like...well, a little bit like Marlamin had before she left. Resigned to something. Desperate. So fucking sad Holga can feel it in her own chest, only made worse by her own inability to just fix it, fix what's wrong. "No, we haven't."
Holga grunts. I didn't like that tavern outside Candlekeep, she wants to say. Ten gold a night? Fucking rip-off. But Edgin had liked that tavern, because Kira had liked that tavern, because there was a sweet, pretty tiefling bard who'd cast dancing lights over her seat over and over again, and it had been the first thing to get her to stop demanding to chew on Holga's fingers in a tenday. Your floor's nothing special, she would say if that floor was something she knew she was ever going to see again, but it'd be a lie, because she'd sleep there another century if she could, though obviously they got her a bed a long time ago. Well, you always said you hated camping, and at least we'll have a roof now. But that doesn't work either, because she liked camping, liked getting to see the stars and hear Edgin sing and watch Kira play and Simon practice his magic and even Forge fiddle with his stupid trinkets. It reminded her of the good days with her tribe before it all went to shit.
"Fine," she says. "We haven't."
Holga's not surprised that the words don't put a smile on his face (even looking at the back of his head, she could tell, knows him too well, knows him better than she thinks she'll ever know anyone), but she is disappointed.
People are assigned cellmates purely by whoever they're next to, so Holga prepares to brain the guy ahead of Edgin if she needs to so they can stay together. A nightmarish tower above a frozen sea that looks like it sees more death than Kelemvor is one thing; being away from Edgin is another. It ends up not being necessary, though, and they're shoved in a cell without further ado.
Holga flops onto the bed to see how bad it is and finds it horribly uncomfortable. It's not really much warmer in here than it was outside, though at least the wind bites into them less. It lacks the same homey charm as their cottage. She misses it with the same bone-deep ache that she'd missed her tribe and missed Marlamin, the pain only eased when she sees Edgin right there with her, even if he is standing and staring dully at the floor like it's their route out of here.
"Edgin," she says, and it comes out all snappish and annoyed instead of gentle and comforting like Kira would be.
"Holga," he says, and sounds a little bit like himself again, if only because he's annoyed with her. It's a huge relief, even when it just ends up in a staring contest. "Did you need something?"
If they were at home, she'd throw something at him. A bit of bread, or some tiny gaudy thing she doesn't care about except to nick him with, but here all she's got is loose stone, and she'd sooner cut off her own arm than hurt him, so she just says, "So? The plan?"
"The plan?" Edgin asks, disbelief and irritation creeping into his words despite his best efforts, volume steadily rising without input from his brain. "What do you mean the plan?! The plan is we...we rot in here for the rest of our lives, Holga! Kira's going to grow up and get married and have kids of her own and we're going to miss every second of it! And that's if we're lucky, because with Forge taking care of her she might end up somewhere like this. Gods forbid, somewhere worse! We're so far from home, and unless you're secretly some master wizard —"
Holga's nose crinkles. It's the most emotion she's shown all day. Not that she's been emotionless through this. He's seen her tension, her nerves in the line of her shoulders, the way she clenches her teeth and refuses to look away from him for more than a second. But that's the most obvious she's been, and it being that to get her there makes him laugh again, loud enough that the cells next to them shush him.
" — then we're fucked, Holga," Edgin says, the second-most defeated he's ever been. Most, of course, being the time he came home to find his wife dead, before finding Kira and having a reason to continue on. At least this time, his fuckup only cost him his opportunity to see his daughter's life, not his daughter's life at all. That's something. That has to be something. That has to be enough or he's not going to be able to do a godsdamned thing for himself or for Holga. Sure, their lives are over, but maybe he can get them some small comforts, the types of things he threw everything away for before. Some food or something. Holga loves a potato. Do they have those here, or is it all dried meat so salted you have to drink your own weight in water just to feel normal again after?
Holga's quiet for a long time. She's not ignoring him — she makes it very obvious when she's doing that, ironically spending more of her own attention on him than she does when she isn't — but thinking about what to say. He needs to know what it is so bad his skin itches with it, but he loves her, and she needs time, clearly, so he just huffs and throws himself on the unoccupied bed.
"This bed sucks," he says, because it does.
"Yeah," Holga says, and goes back to thinking.
Edgin isn't sure if night falls or if the everpresent snowstorm outside just deepens, but it's darker and colder in the cell by the time she opens her mouth again. "This sucks."
"I know, Holga," he says, exhausted but too antsy to even try to sleep, even if the bed didn't feel as hard as a rock. "I already said that."
"No," Holga says, annoyed. "All of this sucks. But it's sucked before."
"Never like this," he says, quietly enough he's not sure if it'll even carry over to her side of the room. But when he turns to look, she's nodding, eyes fixed on him with an intensity that kind of scared him when they first met, worried she was weighing him as Kira's father and finding him wanting. Little did he know then that that was exactly what she was doing, actually. It’s just that rather than hating him for it, she stood by his side and made him…better. Not perfect, but better. He loves her for a lot of things, but maybe for that most of all. He hopes he did that for her before…well, before this. Revel’s End, indeed.
"No," she says again, distracting him from his brief nostalgia for the times before he ruined their lives again. "Fucking cold."
He's known it's cold the whole time, of course, but for whatever reason he hasn't really felt it yet. Too scared to even think about it. Clearly she hasn't had that issue, because now that he's even thought to look for it, she's shaking like a leaf even with no breeze. (Odd phrasing, but the old Harper codes stick with you, even though he’s forgotten what it means. Something to do with detecting thoughts, maybe? Whatever. He was never really the a good Harper. Also, they brought him and Holga here, so they can rot for all he cares.)
"You're unbelievable," he says, exasperated, and rolls off his bed, grabbing the stupid, parchment-thin blanket off it and heading over to join her. "You always say I complain too much and then you never say a thing when it's something I — scoot over, you nightmare, you know you're taking up more than half of this — when it's something I can do something about. Idiot."
"You're the idiot," Holga says gruffly, which is her way of saying thank you when the words don't come easy.
"Sure," Edgin replies, sarcastic and mocking, which is his way of saying I love you, too because he can't just come out and say it to anyone but Kira. He does make the room feel less overwhelmingly freezing, though, so she holds him close, grateful for the way he doesn't push her away, even when he winces at how cold her skin is to the touch. He hums a little healing word, the first time he's cast a thing since they got caught, a familiar almost-lullaby of a tune. He's always been a better planner than a caster, but she still lets the magic sink into her skin like a mug of spiced cider, warming her from the inside out.
They stay like that for awhile. Until actual nightfall, at least, the place dark enough that she can hardly make out the details of his face where it's resting on the same pillow as her, watching her just like she's watching him, remembering that even though this is horrible, he's here with her, just like she's here with him. They're not alone. She isn't alone anymore. She'll never be alone again, if either of them can help it.
"So," Edgin says, rousing her from the light doze she nearly fell into. She grunts back at him, an invitation to keep going. "The plan. Revel's End does have parole hearings. We'll never get pardoned, obviously, but it doesn't matter because the Absolution Council has a brand-new member who can help us."
"Forge?"
"What? No. Who in their right mind would put Forge in a position of power?"
"Hm. Yeah."
"Anyway. Simon was telling me about this one time his magic brought him to Chult and he met someone from Faerûn there who was on that council...at a party full of aarakocra."
Holga blinks at him, processing what he's saying, before she nods. "I'll grab him."
Edgin grins, the first one in days, rakish and confident and so comfortingly his that she pulls him even closer. "Of course. We just have to be model prisoners until then. That'll be easy for me, I'm sure. Everyone loves me."
"Hm."
"Holga!"
"Edgin."
"I'm a bard, it's what we do, it's our thing, everyone loves us. We're the face of Faerûn for a reason!"
"No one has ever said that."
"Oh, whatever. The plan'll work, you'll see."
Two years later, it does. Kind of. Unnecessarily. Once Edgin hears the Councillors were going to pardon them anyway, he brags to Holga for a solid twenty-seven minutes that he was right about everyone loving bards. She wins the argument by picking him up and throwing him into the nearest lake, which makes Kira laugh so hard she falls over. Edgin can't find it in himself to be annoyed about it when both his favorite people in the world are smiling like that.
(Still. He was right.)