Cold upon the mountain

[hlif]

WHO: Asher Hardie; open (npc appearances by The Boneflayers)
WHAT: Asher's fever returns and his crew drag him to the healing tents, knowing it's the end
WHEN: Last week of Solace - mid-whatever August is called
WHERE: Skyhold, healing tents
NOTES: eventual character death; language, discussions about death, violence, faith. Discussions about Asher's childhood. Other warnings in subject headers. Feel free to make your own threads and have them open or closed, the death thread will go up closer to the time! Related ooc post

Asher has known for longer than he's cared to admit so he hasn't admitted it. He's shrugged it off the way he shrugs off pretty much everything else in his life until three nights passed of him coughing and coughing and coughing, keeping his crew awake with it. His chest has been rattling since they brought him back until blood started coming up with it. And now there are wounds cracking open; little cuts that weep for days on end, ugly wounds from the Storm Coast or sparring that feel hot to the touch. (They smell, Amalia had hissed as she'd pressed her hands to his chest over the burn scars to try to force the fever out. Melisende had sworn.)

So they bring him to the healers tents, the sweat rolling off him as he staggers; two dwarves and a Rivaini to help him, his hound with him as ever. The mage in her red leathers explains what she can with a slight elven woman, and the elfblooded one brings up the rear with a hand to his back. They're a constant from that first day to the last, a different combination each time at least one will always be there, stepping out for privacy or finally curling up to sleep.

And Asher...Asher isn't good with this. This isn't how it's meant to be as he presses his fingers into the festering gash over one hip from where a sword bit deep through his armour but the pain only makes him swoon, makes him cough and bite his lip. Doesn't make him focus, doesn't make him want to fight. This isn't how it was supposed to be and for the first time since his mother put him out the house twelve years ago, Asher Hardie is afraid.

It makes him a rather difficult patient, to put it politely.

Comments

not at all, i'll have a signal thread up for the dying bit

[hlif]

Time is a hazy concept on a good day to Asher; it's one of the Avvar things he's always clung to best, one of the things that just made sense to him deep in his bones but the days have been slipping since before he came to the healer's tents, when the fever started to eat away at the days. Still, his last visit in the healing tents wasn't fun for all the it was necessary, and Asher knows this isn't going to end the same way.

If he admits it, it's real, it's a thing he needs to deal with. If he forges on being Asher? Well it's all he can do so he does it, and the rest of the Boneflayers do whatever they can in and out of the tent. There are probably bribes.

The commander isn't a person Asher expects; Bronson recognises him, barks almost happily before going to inspect the new one as Asher makes the attempt to get up to his elbows since Amalia has passed out in the corner from her own healing efforts, out cold and buried beneath her bear slanket and Asher's, one pink cheek and blonde hair plastered to it peeking out.

"Commander?" It looks like the Commander but Asher's sight is bleary. "Come to rescue me?"

[lionheartedman]

Cullen briefly takes a knee for Bronson, lets the mabari sniff at his hands to be sure it's him, then runs them carefully along his neck and shoulders. He warns Puppy of the older dog's blind spot in a gentle and quiet tone, tells him to watch his side, makes sure he understands. The smaller blue pup rears up on his hind legs and carefully licks at some of Bronson's scars before stationing himself at the flank, ready to protect and defend. Not that there's much to protect and defend against here, but he so wants to do his job, even when that job is not actually needed.

"You have never struck me as a man who needs rescuing. Though I admit, I do not know you as well as some - not as well as I'd like." Not as well as he'll be able to, but he doesn't say that. "I've come to do... whatever I can, whatever you need of me." If there is something Cullen can grant, he will. If Asher would prefer to spend the time he has left with friends and save his strength, Cullen can handle that, too. It's not about him.

[hlif]

Bronson remembers, butting his head into Cullen's hand with the usual sort of nonsense sounds any mabari makes as Asher watches with a smile that hurts at the edges. What happens to Bronson is already decided in his head but that doesn't make it any easier for him to accept when his hound has only every known happiness and safety at Asher's side.

"S'a good one you've got there," he comments, up on his elbows and straining to get a proper look without someone to tell him not to do that. Bronson huffs but well, he knows his master, Asher is bad at this, Asher would need the same sort of collar he's fashioned for Bronsone when he's had stitches he can't be trusted not to lick at.

Blowing out a sigh that once might have been explosive, he shrugs. "Thinking I might go for the damsel routine, we've got a decent enough mix of Qunari, Tal-Vashoth and Vashoth, them and some others could come make an attempt. You fought beside me, you know me." Knows enough to know that Asher gives it his all, lives his life to the fullest, worries about his friends, doesn't care what anyone thinks - how Asher has been since he got a job at fifteen. "Anything you want to talk about that isn't me? I'm here for it. Your work, your handsome young friend there. Don't mind her in the corner, she'll be asleep until someone comes to wake her up."

[lionheartedman]

"He's a stubbourn one, too. Chose me and refused to see sense." Cullen leaves the side of the bed Amalia has chosen alone, not wanting to wake her with a careless bump. Instead, he pulls up a crate that at one point probably held bottles of potions, and sits himself on it. "I offer you anything you want, and it's just conversation?" He chuckles ruefully, rubs the back of his neck. "I've never been great with words. Probably would have been easier to get you a dragon."

[hlif]

"They're smarter than us. Every dog is but a mabari is special." Made it all the worse that someone would use them for fighting in pits in the Free Marches, Asher probably sealed a chunk of his pre-Reaver reputation with a display he honestly doesn't remember the night he got Bronson. "You know I fought one of those things in Emprise du Lion, almost got blasted by ice from my knee up to the good bits when it turned my way during a roll. Any rumours I made a Rifter a Reaver are baseless accusation."

Any rumours Asher made a Rifter a Reaver using that blood are indeed absolutely true and they both fought the exact same dragon together, you can't punch dying dudes.

[lionheartedman]

Cullen hasn't heard the rumour, but he just groans with a low chuckle. "You didn't." He takes a beat and looks at Asher square on. "You did. Who?" He holds up a preemptive hand. "Not angry, I just like knowing what's going on around here. As much as is possible." Another beat. "It's usually not at all possible."

Asher's right. He can't punch a dying dude. He can pout like a son of a bitch, though.