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“Let me get this straight: you lost the ring.”
“... Not exactly. I left it somewhere before attending to other, more urgent matters. We were at war, after all.”
“In other words, you lost the ring.”
“I,” Chrom begins, before breaking off into a sigh. “Gods, I could have sworn it was just there.”
Chrom’s hand trembles minutely as he combs shaking fingers through his fringe. Without entirely meaning to, Robin’s eyes follow the path forged by veins standing out on his tensed arm, past the skin marred by battles hard-fought, to Chrom’s ring finger. He tries to picture a silver ring across it, or a gold one, or even a band set entirely with diamonds, as a royal ring should.
Not that he would know, of course - that ring was never his to have.
Robin swallows.
“The tactical brilliance of our army’s commander. I never thought I’d live to see it.”
“Robin,” Chrom says sharply, and, for a moment, Robin fears that he’s overstepped his bounds - the burden of Emmeryn’s death weighs heavy still on both their shoulders - but his worries are eased, slightly, when Chrom’s lips curve upwards.
“That’s why I have you,” Chrom finishes.
You’ll be the death of me, Robin aches to reply.
“And it seems like duty calls once again. Tell me what it looks like - I’ll help you search,” is what he says instead, mouth twisting in a wry grin even as he struggles to ignore the burning in his chest when Chrom’s smile widens in gratitude.
He’d like to think that it is a testament to the sheer depth of their relationship that Chrom finds him shortly after he finds the ring - but it probably has more to do with the fact that he hadn’t moved since the moment he fished the ring out of the drawer.
As it is, Chrom races into the room to find Robin standing stock-still, as if frozen in place. The wedding ring is cradled gingerly in his cupped hands, and Chrom’s grin falters, brow furrows, the unrestrained relief on his face giving way to quiet concern.
“Did you know," Robin’s voice echoes, disarmingly loud in the almost-vacant room, "that the older civilisations believed that there was a vein that ran directly from the heart, all the way to the fourth finger of the left hand.”
With the ring gripped lightly in his hand, Robin trails his first finger up along Chrom’s fourth.
“It’s not true, of course. But it’s poetic, don’t you think?”
He stops past the center of Chrom’s palm. His nail grazes, feather-light, over the crease of Chrom’s life line, where the ring is deposited gently - almost reverentially.
“Robin.” Chrom phrases his name like a question and statement in one; tentative and stern all at once.
“It’s a beautiful ring,” Robin says, straying hand returning to it’s place at his side, “and it surely deserves a better hiding place than a dusty old dresser in the middle of nowhere.”
Chrom regards him silently, the crease between his brows a small grey shadow on his face.
“I’ll have you know,” Chrom’s voice is even, measured, and Robin fears, once again, that he has trespassed into perilous lands, “that that dusty old dresser is a royal Ylissean heirloom, and this middle of nowhere happens to be my home.”
The laughter that bubbles out of Robin’s throat surprises even himself.
He folds his arms across his chest, shoulder bumping into Chrom’s none-too-lightly.
“Come now, you. Don’t you have a royal Ylissean engagement to make?” he teases, and Chrom’s answering chuckle etches itself into the empty space where his memories should be, leaving him slightly less than empty.