faderift | open; Give me a field, give me a big sky

The question is said so fast upon him entering that Sam cannot help the amused huff that comes out. "Yes, you do," he replies, shaking his head, both at Asher joking in his condition and at his actual condition. Maker, this was a lot worse than what Asher had made it out to be. Of course having a run in with an abomination would obviously be bad, but the warrior had said he had healing.

"You look like utter shit..." Christine was going to kick your ass, Asher. Probably after the two of them worked on helping getting him healed up more.

Christine is hot on Sam's heels, her hands gripping at the skirts of her mage robes to hike them up over her ankles so she can walk faster. Stupid tall Fereldans...

"Let me see," she says as she enters the tent, ready to shoulder past Sam if he still happens to be in the way. Her eyes focus in on Asher, and then they widen, almost comically.

"Asher," she scolds, coming closer to take a better look. "Sam is right." But she is a lady and won't say such things. Sam can say them for her.

"Can't get enough of me-" He's about to say more but that's when he coughs, when the world spins sharply out of focus and blurs at the edges, narrowing until he can finally breath again, rasping painfully.

Any other time this would be a dream come true but he is blisters and bloody wounds, still raw and red, still bleeding, possibly infected in places because it was a long road to go from Gwaren to Skyhold despite the best efforts of the crew to look after him.

"I'm alive aren't I?" Then softer, more for Christine like he's trying to talk down a wild animal that might eat him. "Don't kill me."

It is a little amusing to see Christine bull her way into the tent past him and then level Asher with a look. Sam grins just a bit when Christine says he's right, and a bit more when Asher doesn't quite cower, but certainly acts like the other mage is going to pounce on him. Not in a good way either.

"You might not be for long," he muses. "Don't worry, we'll get you healed up before Christine uses you for target practice." She won't, but he's still going to tease, hopefully distract her a bit with it so that she wasn't as upset about Asher's wounds. He didn't like it either, but honestly there was little they do or say about it. This was Asher after all. Moving closer and then leaning in some to get a better look at the wounds, Sam shakes his head. "How often were you getting healed on the way here?"

Christine's gaze nearly shifts at the "target practice" comment, but Asher's health is more important than traded quips right now. She moves to kneel down beside their patient, adding, "I do not know whether your healer did a very good job in getting you here alive, or a very poor job since these still look very bad. Sam, I will start here--" She places a hand in the air over a chest wound. "Will you take the other side and we can work our way through this mess?"

"Christine's too lovely for that, she's not got a heart of darkness like you." Or like Amalia but he hasn't really talked about Amalia too much, and certainly not when she might be skulking about the way she possibly is just now. Christine's words only make him wince.

It'll be Asher paying the price if she gets offended.

When she gets offended.

"Lost track if I'm honest. Days blur together when you're stuck in a wagon trundling along the countryside and it's just brown, brown, and- fuck, more brown." Last time that had happened had been when he'd drunk the dragon's blood, when his breath had just fogged a mirror. "The thing threw itself at me. One second there was a mage when we were told it was a normal smuggling job - in Gwaren that means booze, money, goods, it never means mages - and then it was a monster, and it was fire."

Sam raises a brow at that. "Heart of darkness like me," he repeats quietly while Christine berates the warrior, enough that he can be heard but not to interrupt. Always so cruel, Asher. Well now you're going to have to offer more than just damn good sausage, because that's what dark hearted people did, right?

"Guess now you'll start expecting to see mages anywhere you go." Seeing where Christine is motioning, Sam maneuvers around to the other side of the cot, getting a better look at the extent of the wounds. Finding a spot to start off on he looks up and waits for Christine to begin before working on his own side.

Christine pays little heed to their banter, but she doesn't shush Asher either. Talking is a good distraction when patients are hurt, but need to stay conscious. Her gaze flickers to Sam a moment before back to the wounds.

"People like them need help. They need support, and proper training, so they have confidence in themselves and do not fall prey to demons." She sighs and refocuses, eyes glowing blue as Faith lends its aid. Now is not the time to discuss the dangers mages face, but to heal their patient.

"No I won't." Clumsily, he reaches out to tap one then the other on the arm and despite the fever burning through him, his gaze still manages to be steady. "Do you know how long I've known Korrin? I've known Amalia even longer, and I grew up going to the hold more than my brothers and sisters, being told stories when my grandfather came on his visits. My people…"

He has to break off for a while because it's hard to think when he's in this sort of pain. He can channel it in battle but in battle all he needs to do is shout orders, keep track of where people are. Even when the abomination was there he was still commanding, only dropping when it was done and he knew everyone else was okay.

"My people don't do it the way the Circle does, or the Dalish. Spirits are more important. Possession is important. But it ends. The spirit must leave or they're exiled, or supported. But if they're corrupted...then they go to sleep, and they don't wake up." Normally, after the disaster this was with Kaisa, after all those years of his mother making him feel about an inch tall when he spoke about his beliefs and she beat him down with the Chantry he wouldn't say this but pain loosens his tongue now, exhaustion too. "They're our gods. You don't corrupt them by abusing them. Not like that. Not to be so selfish, so you'll get your own way and fuck anyone else."

Sam takes a moment to listen to Asher when he is tapped, but he's not sure what knowing Korrin, Amalia, or going to the hold has to do with what is being said. When Asher breaks off Sam settles a hand over the part of the wounds Christine had dictated to him, hand glowing blue, the color reaching his eyes as he calls on Fortitude to help as well.

"What?" The mention of possession certainly has Sam turning his head, eyes widening a bit, but it doesn't cut off his concentration on the healing. The news seems to also grab Fortitude's attention as well. "You allow for possession?" He doesn't turn his head to look at Christine, but he can imagine the news will be... shocking for her as well. More so since she had been rather vocal about certain possessed mages.

Indeed, Christine's eye twitches and her hand dips down closer to his wound when she hears that. It sounds like something traditional, that the Avvar have always done, and it sounds reckless as can be. Her lips purse, words threatening to spill from between her lips, but she holds them back. Talking will keep Asher awake, but arguing will make him flare to life like a roaring fire, and she can't have that while they're trying to heal him.

It takes her a moment, but then her mind clears enough from the shock to ask, "And what is the point of possession? Is it seen as some sort of honor as the spirits are your gods?" For now, her voice is level. She focuses on the healing and borrowing Faith's strength for it.

Look, Asher almost died, he's burning with a fever he's had for well over a week now. He's earned the right to be at least a little irrational and emotional about his mage friends perhaps thinking he might see them all the way so many people in Thedas do, as monsters just waiting for the right moment to twist into something terrible and attack everything near them.

"Spirits are welcome in the hold. Always have been, they're our gods and we work with them, we make offerings. Korth, Haakon, the Lady of the Skies, Rilla of the Fireside, plenty of others. Must've offended Haakon something fierce to end up like this." And yes, Asher does believe that, truly and sincerely. But back to the matter at hand. "A mage learns by being possessed by the spirit, it teaches them with patience and kindness, then one day they must release that spirit; the spirit teaches that mage control. We know how to court the spirits, believe me, spirits can be with holds for generations upon generations, and we have no wish to have abominations. There are ways to force a bad spirit out, and mages go through a ritual to release their spirit when the training is over or they're called an abomination and exiled from the hold."

So now Asher's attitude regarding Anders probably makes a hell of a lot more sense than it did previously.

With everything Asher is saying his attitude does make a lot more sense. Even so it's all a lot to take in. For all their lives they had been taught and raised to believe spirits and the world one way and here Asher was saying it was completely different. His hand shifts a bit to cover a different part of Asher's chest, taking a moment to glance at Christine before turning his attention back to the fever ridden warrior.

"Bad spirit. Are you referring to demons or-?" Were those one in the same or did the Avvar see spirits differently? So far it seemed like they did considering they had their mages possessed in order to learn magic.

Edited 2016-05-12 20:35 (UTC)

"Maker's breath," Christine whispers, shifting uncomfortably. Her relationship with Faith is very well defined, and yet she would never allow the spirit inside her. Spirits are easily confused and corruptible. At least, the spirits who had no one to talk to on this side of the Veil. "If your spirits spend generations among you, they must have observed and learned much. They are probably quite different than other spirits." And this is something Christine hadn't really considered before now. Necromancers put weak spirits into dead bodies to fight, spellbinders bind spirits in order to use them for their whims, but spirits being treated like members of the community is something completely new to her.

A deep sigh escapes Asher, some of the tension he's been holding finally leaving him as he closes his eyes. "Thank you, both of you. And...and whoever you're working with." After all, Asher isn't stupid, he knows healing, and he knows spirits, it would be rude not to thank the others involved in it especially when they're discussing spirits right now. For a few moments he lets them work in peace as he takes the time to breath and think, relaxing and doing a few breathing exercises he's picked over the years as he allows some of the tension to leave his body now the pain is starting to recede.

Blinking back into wakefulness with the world a little more in focus, he shrugs as much as he can without getting in their way. "Bad spirits. Disruptive ones wanting to start shit, maybe some of them are demons but I'm not a mage and I didn't grow up in the hold, I visited, and they came to see me. You need to woo a spirit - and don't laugh, I mean it, you need to do that sort of thing. The spirits protect the hold too, they help to drive off bad spirits as well, rage or gloom, things like that." He offers a smile, reaching for Christine's hand as he tries to catch her eye, unsure of how this is coming across when he's not in his right mind anyway. His mother's voice is loud in the back of his head, all those Chantry memories and sermons too. You have no place here, she'd told him, and he shakes himself, scrunching his eyes shut tight as he takes a steadying breath.

"Fortitude," he replies softly when Asher gives thanks. The warrior was being respectful enough to thank them for their work so it seemed right he should know who or what it was. Fortitude wasn't doing this for 'thanks', but it gives a pleasant rumbling in Sam's head.

It was easy to see and hear some of the tension reside, which went to show that Asher was putting up with a good amount of pain, which was a bit upsetting to know it had been something he was dealing with this whole time. Least him and Christine were able to help with that, and hopefully soon they could have Asher back up on his feet. It would take a bit of time, a few healing sessions considering the extent of Asher's wounds and how long it had been before getting treatment.

Sam catches the way Asher smiles and goes for Christine's hand, adverting his eyes after a moment to give them at least the illusion of some privacy. The wooing comment certainly has his smile growing, but he doesn't laugh. "That... makes sense. Now that I have Fortitude there are a lot less demons when I dream."

"And Faith is with me," Christine adds in after Sam. She continues working, taking Faith's invaluable help and listening to Asher explain. She doesn't want to consider it so idyllic; that spirits and people can converse so easily without the spirits becoming corrupted and trying to trick the Avvar into letting them into this world. And yet... it sounds like a community of mutual respect. It sounds like something she'd want to see. The lessons on spirits drilled into her at an early age come into her mind, deep in Chantry teachings, but Faith whispers to her that the Chantry is only one way, one thought, one experience. This is the benefit of having one of these good spirits close at hand. As much as Christine teaches Faith, Faith teaches her too.

She's surprised when Asher takes her hand, and it's almost more frightening than his wounds. He is a man who jokes, yells; and gentleness is far from his normal state. She tells Faith she needs a moment, and the blue glow in her eyes fades away, leaving her own blue eyes staring into his. She tightens her grip on his hand, and rests her other on top to lay a rejuvenation spell on him, to hopefully dull some of the pain. Taking a moment to consider, she finally speaks.

"Will you take me to see them someday? Your people and your spirits? Would I be allowed? I would very much like to see them for myself." It's true. Now that she has Faith by her side, the world has opened itself up to her much more. She knows what the Chant says, but she knows what Faith says too. That doesn't mean she'd ever let the spirit use her body -- there is too much that could go wrong -- but maybe the fear the Chantry's put into her head has no place there.

Every bump, every jolt, he'd felt them all in the cart when they'd bundled him into it. When they'd tried to strike a balance between making good time and jostling him too much. The salt air of Gwaren, the damp of the Hinterlands, the bitter chill of the mountain climb, all of it and Asher sweating through his furs trying not to scratch his skin clean off.

"That's what they're there for with us. It's why you're mindful, watching the signs. Saying your prayers and leaving the right offerings. I need to get that sorted once I'm on my feet." He has an idea of what it is, that he was reluctant, that he dragged his feet, that he left; he's back now, he's here, he's going to do right by what he said he would but it's a reminder and a hard one. Or maybe this is a reminder anyway that he's been fighting a long time now, that not all things last. Asher's not usually given to such thoughts but there's a strange feeling being a tent with spirits so close that he can imagine the augur looming over him, opening his mouth to let them speak with his voice.

He'd say something about their spirits matching them well, or about how he saw his youngest sister, tall and slender with hair of gold, fierce and brave but so gentle where Asher isn't, soothing all the rough raw edges that he has but he blinks away the sudden tears and blames it on the sweat as the fever breaks again.

"Look at you going native Christine," he teases. "Aye, I'll take you. Guests are welcome especially if you come with me. Our augurs would let the spirits greet you, and you could both meet the young mages, and our crafters. The augurs keep the lore too and our lore is so old. We aren't the Dalish. We never lost our homes. We kept it. We've kept so much."

He's almost tempted to offer the two of them a moment alone, but thinks differently of it since Asher is still talking to him. Besides Asher still needed healing, and with Christine taking a momentary break from it for another spell, Sam continues to work on the wounds, which were already starting to look slightly better. This might be something they did several times.

"It would be... interesting to visit these augurs? you keep talking about." The things they could learn from such a place. Everything the Chantry and the Cirlces had taught were already so heavily questioned at this point, but after hearing this? To be a mage and it being a good thing, or at least not something for them to be locked away for. There was probably more to it, but still.

Sam smiles a bit at Asher's teasing, eyes lifting to look at Christine a bit. Skipped right over the Ferelden bit and straight into Avvar territory. "You feeling at better, Asher?"

Christine fixes Asher with a look that says not to even joke about her going native. The very idea! She lets out a huff and gently rests his hand down at his side, patting it reassuringly before she returns to healing, eyes glowing blue once more.

"I should like to speak with them," she replies. "My studies have all been based on what we have been told in the Chant." And the observant will notice that Christine only prays over the dead, and only goes in the little chapel at Skyhold to talk with a person already there. She doesn't recite the Chant very much at all.

Honestly he wants them both - for as much as he teases Sam, he's a good friend, and they've bought fought together as well, and that's always what makes Asher trust people. He's got contacts that've never steered him wrong, always polite, always willing to put up with whatever nonsense Asher throws at them but they've never once fought side by side, back to back, but out in Emprise du Lion, Asher ended up fighting bears and wolves alongside both of them, and that means something, at least to him.

"They council the Thane too. That's the leader of the hold - I don't even know what anyone knows about the Avvar, my crew, and Korrin and Mal, they've known me so long they know everything." And the crew go to the holds with him, they've all considered guests at other holds the way that Asher did but just like him at honey badger, they're family. "The Chantry, Templars, Andraste, none of that has a place in the hold, none of it is even welcome in the hold. You can see why I liked getting to go visit when my parents were busy with my other siblings and the farm, and I was getting in the way. You work hard in the hold but you watch out for each other, spirit and person, and hold beast."

Nodding, he gives a real smile, grateful and relieved in response the question. "You have no idea. Rattling around in a cart isn't how to travel when you're like this." But it's not like he could actually walk so he didn't really have options.

"Honestly, they don't teach us much about the Avvar in the Circle." Probably for good reasons, too. Everything Asher has told them is completely against anything they were taught, particularly when it comes to spirits. Sure there was a similarity for not tolerating them, but how they dealt with spirits as a whole was different - hell they had their mages possessed and taught that way.

That would go over so well in the Circles and Chantry.

"Hold beast?" He can figure that Asher is referring to an animal maybe, but not quite sure what it's supposed to actually be? With Christine taking up healing again, Sam takes a moment to take a break, eyes fading back to their original amber as he does so. "You feeling hungry or anything?"

"Yes, I also know very little." And she's growing more interested by the moment. Speaking of the hold seems to relax Asher, and that's good for any patient, so he should continue.

Christine lifts her head briefly to nod at Sam, because she is also curious about this hold beast.

Bad spirits aren't tolerated, and every Avvar augur or shaman knows exactly how to force any spirit out since each and every ritual Asher's ever watched, even the mild ones, involve the spirits speaking through them. But he grew up with that, it stopped making him blink with anything more than wonder before he needed two hands to count his age.

"Ours is a honey badger, fierce bastards. Take no shit beg no man pardon. Ties us to the gods, but it lives how it chooses, it hunts since we only feed it a little. When it's well, the hold is happy and joyous. If the hold beast sickens and dies, it's an ill omen." He'd personally always thought that Ferelden adopting the mabari so strongly had to come from being descended from the Avvar, some ancestral part of them still wanting some sort of symbol even if they spoil their hounds way too much, with him being just as guilty. Then again, Bronson was in a worse state when Asher got him than he currently is now. Mention of food triggers a wave of nausea and he shakes his head, lifting a hand as much as he can to stave it off. "Water, throat feels like it'll crack."

While he still has a voice - and after he's finished coughing since he has to do that until his lungs ache - he gives Christine as close to the usual Asher grin as possible "I wrestle the honey badger. I'm sure you're going to pretend to be appalled but deep down you love it."

A honey badger. He doesn't even know what that is, but it had to be a rather resilient beast if the Avvar took it as a hold beast, and more so if Asher talked of it so fondly. Sam doesn't think too much on it though seeing as Asher asks for water, getting up from his seat to head over to the pitcher and basin off to the side.

It takes but a moment to fill a cup before he comes back, holding the cup for Asher to take, and not letting it go until he feels that the man has a good enough grip on it. The bit about wrestling the honey badger does have Sam raising a brow, and turning his eyes up to Christine. Such flirting.

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aceso - 2016-05-28 18:47 (UTC) - Expand