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The gods know Rin and Kitay disagree on many things, but that he would follow her anywhere. He's proven as much—sticking by her side despite what she's capable of doing, of what she won't hesitate to do again. He's been with her with every single betrayal, bore the brunt of her god to give her access to her flame. No one can truly understand the depth of his love for her, and her him. They may never see eye-to-eye, but he will always be hers, and she will always be his.
It's a promise he'd made her in Sinegard.
In the drowning haze of war, Rin had already forgotten.
But Kitay never forgets.
It was a hot day. Sweltering, even. The air was unbearably humid, making every movement, even breathing, disgustingly unpleasant, like a furnace running ablaze in his lungs. His uniform stuck to his skin, sticky with his sweat. But their Masters did not let up with work—in fact, the heat only seemed to exacerbate their tempers and made them even stricter than before.
Kitay found himself trudging to Jiang's garden where Rin was decidedly not meditating and collapsing on her, plopping his head on her lap.
She snorted, but only laced her fingers into his hair.
He recalls how she seemed unfazed by the heat, and he had said as much to her. She simply shrugged and told him that the South had worse summers than this.
“You look exhausted. Trouble in strategic paradise?”
“That's one way to put it. Apparently, no matter how brilliant someone is, people are not immune to getting crabby with the heat. I've never seen Irjah snippier.”
Rin let out a laugh, leaning back against a tree. She only caressed his hair with her fingers in response, touch light and relaxing, and Kitay closed his eyes, letting himself drift into a half-asleep daze, when she spoke again.
“Do you really think we'll live to see war?”
Kitay opened his eyes lazily to look at her, only to find Rin's gaze far away, thoughtful.
He closed them again, turning his head and burying his face into her stomach before answering.
“Maybe. Who knows. We've been at peace for decades. War may not break out in our lifetime.”
He felt rather than saw her frown, her hand stopping the soothing motions.
“Then what are we studying all of this for?”
“Nikan always needs new soldiers. Border skirmishes, shows of power, you get the gist.” He paused, considering. “And maybe we will see war if we're lucky.”
“If we're lucky?”
Kitay hummed.
“We'd be making history. Fighting in the frontlines for Nikan's honor valiantly.”
“You make it sound better than it actually does.”
“That's just how they'll dress it up for us, anyway.”
“I guess I'd rather die with a way to fight back than in a hole married to a man thrice my age and decaying alive.”
Something inside Kitay snapped at those words—so abrupt and unexpected, he didn't even know what or how it happened. But it did. Kitay couldn't possibly describe what he felt at that moment. The way his entire body tightened in pain—not fear or surprise, but a sharp ache that made him recoil. He bolted up and turned to look at her.
“Don't say that,” he said without thinking.
Rin blinked at him, confused.
“Say what?”
“That—” he started, taking a slow breath, “That you'll die.”
“But you just—”
“You're not going to die.”
He saw her eyes soften in realization for a split second, but it barely lasted. Rin never knows when to stop pushing, and Kitay is aware that it's going to end up getting her into heaps of trouble someday, but he can never stop himself from obliging her.
Something akin to challenge alighted in her eyes.
“Soldiers die in wars, Kitay.”
“You won't.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And why not?”
“I won't let you,” he replied. He didn't know how, but no other words he'd spoken before have rung truer than those.
“What, you'll step in front of a sword aimed at me? Don't be fucking ridiculous.”
He didn't even hesitate.
“Yes, I would.”
Rin stiffened. He didn’t understand how, but Kitay knew she felt that very same snap inside of her. Her gaze hardened, and she grabbed him by the shoulder roughly, forcing him closer to face her fully.
“You don't get to say that either.”
“Then promise me I wouldn't have to.”
“I—” she stopped, glaring at him, but he met her heated gaze with one of his own.
They'd bickered, they'd yelled, they'd argued with each other before.
But this was different.
It was not a fight—but no matter how many times he'd conceded to Rin before, this was something he refuses to let go of.
She doesn't get to talk about dying. She doesn't get to talk about dying and leaving him behind.
Perhaps, even then, deep down, he'd known what she'd be capable of. Of just what he was willing to do for her.
“Promise me, Rin. You don't die.”
Not without me, he continued in his head. Rin scrutinized him with sharp eyes, as if peering into his mind and finding the words he'd left unsaid. Her frown deepened, but she must have seen something in his expression that made her answer.
“Fine. But you don't die, too.”
Not without me, he heard the unspoken words hang in the air, and Kitay knew he wasn’t imagining it either.
Rin pledging Lore had always been something he'd failed to comprehend—and still didn't. She didn't tell him what exactly she does or learns, except for some short spiel about divinity and about finding out what happened to her in the Tournament.
He'd never believed in gods at the time—his whole world had been constructed around him with the power of sound logic, and yet, just in that moment, he might have.
Because Kitay couldn't explain what occurred between them. A silent understanding. An unbreakable vow.
He knew what she wanted. She knew what he wanted.
And neither of them will back down on it.
And no matter how much stronger Rin’s will was than his, they reached a stalemate in that instant.
Kitay nodded slowly. He didn't feel the need to disturb the quiet. Instead, he leaned over and pressed a soft kiss on her forehead, and her grip on his arms tightened in response.
Neither of them could have possibly imagined how things would unfold for them from there.
War came and went, and when it was ended by a god's hand with a girl's plea, another rose in its place.
And yet, despite that, Kitay remembers that promise, when they were both children playing at being soldiers for glory, before their innocence had been stripped away by its unyielding brutality.
And he prays. Kitay prays, even to gods he knows won't listen, that it will never come to that. That he will never have to invoke that promise.
Not without me.
But if fate is unkind, which he is learning quickly that it is, then Kitay intends to follow her 'til the end.