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Cold upon the mountain
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
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.
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She reaches for his hand, as though she can squeeze back strength into it and they can go back to the tavern for drinking and arm-wrestling. There's a soft, choked noise from her that sounds like it was supposed to be a laugh but that couldn't quite be managed. "I would have stuck with you through a lot more, you know. Mal and me both. Always thought we'd all go together with a bang, facing a horde of something awful. That's what mercenaries are supposed to do, right? So much for the fantasy in my head."
Not that Korrin had any real desire to go before her time, but if she did, having her closest friends at her back hardly seemed like the worst way to go. And now Asher is leaving before them, going where they can't follow. Not yet, anyway. "You weren't that bad, you know. You may have dragged us into all sorts of crap, but you weren't alone in that and we always came out with a good story for it. I can't ask for more than that. And hell, you put up with me and my attitude when most humans wouldn't give me the time of day. You're a better man than you gave yourself credit for, Asher."
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He'll forgive her if she doesn't recognise the sound he's making is meant to be a laugh. Where once he was too loud, this is a sad echo. A rattle in the throat. "You've got a title in front of your name. Bet Mal's going to have one in front of his too before this is all over. You've got that girl of yours too." Asher doesn't understand being tied down to one person, not even here at the end of things but Asher is Avvar and that's the way he was made, never settling, never being tied down to any one person more than friendships for longer than a night and not even a whole night at that.
Closing his eyes because sometimes even this little light hurts, and sometimes because it's just too much effort to keep them open for too long, Gwen's words swim to the forefront of his mind. Korrin doesn't mean her words to hurt but they ache. They burn and he bites his chapped lip until the blood in his mouth is fresh at least instead of stale. You always take such care, and one eye opens as if he might see Gwen tucked in the tent too, but he's sure Korrin would've said something, to be sure everyone sees you not care what they think. "I'm a joke the gods played on my mother; the gods are always watching, and my gods are capricious. D'you know what happens when you shun the gods, and pretend-- pretend you aren't what you are? That you never were. That your children never will be? You get me. You get something that's too big and too loud," funny how Asher barely has the voice to tell that tale now, isn't it? It's funny, it's a good joke, that's what the gods can be like, Eleanor Hardie finally gets the firstborn she longed for quiet and small and less on his deathbed twenty-seven years later. "And when she tries to push back to make him fit the thing she wants, she ends up putting him out the door when he's fifteen. Spends the first years of his life fighting everyone that looks at him sideways, spends all the rest of it getting paid for it at least."
That's seldom anyone's definition of a good man, and Asher Hardie probably (definitely) doesn't think he's a good man most days. He has moments where he's not as terrible a man as most but that still doesn't say much. And that's the most he's ever said to Korrin about getting put out the house. It's embarrassing to admit things like that to people with a family that loves them.
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"Fuck titles. And fuck her, for treating you that way. She sounds almost as bad as a Qunari, forcing you to fit into a role, only they'd reeducate you instead of tossing you out on your ass. You're not 'too big and too loud'; you're fine just as you are, always have been. It's her, with the fucking stick up her ass, that's the problem. You deserved better, and I'll fight anyone who says different." And she has, plenty of times, Skyhold and elsewhere. Asher can -well, could- always fight his own battles, but if he wasn't around to do it, she had no problem filling in. He'd do the same for her, after all.
"I know you have some family still worth being called that. If you want me to tell them, I will. Whatever you need." She might need someone to prevent her from giving Eleanor Hardie a good hard slap should they ever meet in person, but other than that, Korrin can be trusted to keep to her word. Family ought to know, at least the kind that still deserves him.
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"Time came and went years ago Korrin," he tells her quietly, gentler than she's ever heard Asher, gentle in a way he is with people not hardened by the sort of life they've chosen. (Did Asher chose it? He likes to think so. He said yes to Melisende, he could have said no. He's told her that a hundred times in the tent.)
"Nasir's already gone. He's going to get Aura, take her up to the hold. She cares about it as much as me, she just doesn't fight." Eleanor can't lose her youngest, he doesn't really know what goes on but Aura has steel in her spine about it and Asher can't be blamed because this happened during the time he was away and only writing to send coin back every so often. "No one else will go, just her. He'll take her up. She won't...she won't fight him."
If she does then Aura won't come back down the mountain. He knows that in his bones. Weird some of the things Asher just knows with a quiet sort of certainty that leave him able to get through much of life without ever having to question things but he'll take it.
"I need you to do something for me though, if you go to the hold. Bronson...he's getting on. And he loves Aura. She loves him. You and Mal? You'd make sure yeah?" There's a lump in his throat that he can barely speak through, and he covers his face with his hands because he can't. He can't do this. Bronson was skin and bone in a pit, nearly dead and Asher was nothing but a force of nature tearing through the world when he'd shattered the skull of the man that had owned him, throwing him against hulking half-breeds that were all muscle and teeth. He can't imagine a world without Bronson, when he'd nursed him back to life again through sheer force of will. When he'd remembered that he could be gentle.
When he'd cried holding him, a man's blood and bone on his hands, and Bronson somehow trying to wag his tail, a good eye full of hope trained on Asher and they'd never looked back. If he feels any guilt, it's leaving before Bronson does.
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She relaxes a little at mention of Aura, grateful that Asher's sister will be there and Bronson will have her to care for him. Not that Korrin or Mal wouldn't do what they could, but Aura can give the elder mabari her full attention and love. They can't, not when their duty to the Inquisition is unfinished. (It's one reason why she's relieved none have imprinted on her; she doesn't feel as though she would do one justice with the demands on her time and energy.) It wouldn't be fair to the mabari who's earned his retirement, not to have someone make him the center of their world.
Unable to remain in that chair as Asher covers his face, Korrin claims the bed's edge so she can (more gently than anyone might credit a qunari) slip her arms around him. She blinks furiously to keep her vision clear, but her wavering voice already gives her away. "Of course we will, Asher. He won't have better care until he reaches her, I promise. Isn't that right, boy?" One hand reaches out to Bronson, stroking the old dog tenderly.
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It's supposed to be in a fight. It's supposed to be swift and sudden and glorious- not like this. He's come when he could but this is-
Mal knows the smell of death when it's in the air. That's what this is. And that it's on Asher-
"Kor. Honey-Bear." Not a thing in this world that'll keep him from sitting in with Asher right now. Korrin on one side- Mal comes around to tuck Asher between them. Like they've piled up many a night, like it's just another moment when they're drinking themselves to sleep. After a fight, after a mission, after a job. Like it's not the last time. Gentle as he can manage he loops an arm around Asher's waist. Reaches around to squeeze Korrin's shoulder. "We'll take care of him."
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Bronson pushes into her hand, whines again at Asher who purses his lips to blow out a slow shaking sigh. "I know," he tells him. The mabari grumbles. It's a lecture. Half-hearted but since Bronson's giving it his best Asher will do what he can to listen to it, nodding along, interjecting 'yes', 'no', 'of course', at the right moments. "I'll miss you boy. But she'll do right by you now. And when the time comes. You know she'll do that too. We'll go bother Herc again together, right old boy?"
(Asher can't really be strong anymore for anyone. But he can be strong for the dog that made him remember he was more than just a blade to be aimed.)
And then there's Mal, and Asher attempts a smile that aches. "Darlin'," he croaks out with a bleary blink, finding his elbows but his elbows don't want to make the effort to push him up so he just has to lie there. It is what it is, he hasn't been subject to any messages on sending crystals, passed over his own to Melisende's keeping when it was getting in his way days ago and he nearly launched it through the tent. (As if he had the strength left in his arms to pull that shit off.) "Thought you'd stood me up for some Orlesian ponce, thought I was-" There's a careful swallow around what isn't going to be a cough but a rattle, "I was going to have to come fight for you."
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Mal's arrival causes that as well, for as glad as she is to see him, seeing the pain in his eyes that must mirror her own is almost too much to bear. She draws in a shaky breath, moving her hand back up to squeeze the one at her shoulder. As their eyes meet, she tries to smile but it's more a brief twitch of her lips than anything else. This is going to be a rough night, but they can focus on Asher for now. That last comment of Asher's has her letting out a soft huff that in better times could be a snort of amusement. Now it more resembles a sob than anything else. "I'd have paid to see that, nice front-row seats and everything."
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If Asher can't sit up, well- he has no shame in nudging him over just enough to slot himself alongside him, lying down like he could hold the man in his skin and bones. Like if he held him tight enough he wouldn't go. Keeping his voice clear, now- that ain't easy. But for Asher? He tries. "Nah. You know you're the only man for me. But I mighta let you fight one just to have you flip me over your shoulder and haul me off after you kicked his ass."
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(Only Aura's got a better head on her shoulders than he ever did, she won't need that.)
"S'dangerous talk that is." His grandfather had said more than once when it became clear that Asher wouldn't shut up about his friends, Mal in particular after him and Sigrid had made their own sort of arrangement, that he should get on with things. And Asher had just laughed, blown him off, told him about all of Mal's women and the time in the cave as if that answered. Made a point of bedding someone loudly, and sometimes it would be Gjurd, and sometimes it would be Sigrid, and they would look at him but he'd just pretend to be asleep because he didn't--
Too late for that. Easier to find Mal's hand, to give this helpless shrug. Tell me what to do, he thinks but that isn't fair, they've done this but it's been quick. A knife and a head to the forehead of someone choking on their own blood after a battle. "I do any of that," he continues when he realises that lapsing into silences might be taken for something else (not quite there, not yet, but he's cold for the first time in years though it doesn't bother him too much now), "and you need to start singing. Korrin as our witness. I think they think she's the only one with character out of the three of us."
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"They're not wrong, you know." There's a brief huff, a sound that tries to be laughter but can't manage it. "Just for you two, I would. We could get him a honey badger tattoo, just so people know where he really belongs." That thought will come back to her later as more than a jest, something for them both.
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No bullshit. Not a goddamn lick of a joke right there, not with Asher so pale in ways that don't speak to bloodloss (which is normal) or gett'n dumped in freezing water (which is how he cleans off WHEN he cleans off because he's a savage). Not now when it counts. He twists enough to press his forehead against Asher's temple just. Breathing. It smells like death. Like rot. Like sick. Like the plauge fields and the burning mass pyres after Denerim.
Like Ostagar.
Malcolm swallows past the twinge in his chest and breathes again, ignoring all that. Finds the sweat and dirt and whatever it is Asher put in his beard (not much.) Rubs his own worry grown stubble against the side of Asher's head cuz, shit, fair is fair. "Right over my heart. Or ass. Wherever you wanna be more."
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(Wow can you tell Asher grew up on a farm? And he shouldn't make himself laugh, it's not worth it now, it hurts too much, it makes the world swim too dark, like he's drowning, and he can't claw his way to the surface, this weight on his chest that he can't seem to lift.)
"Both of you...look out for each other?" Seriousness slides into his tone, the way he does before a battle and in some ways it's not too far off because you never know. They've lived that sort of life for so long where they take those mad risks, where they kill for coin, tramping from one end of Thedas to the other for the thrill, the glory, blood on their hands and under their nails. "You and your girl, Korrin, and you and Merrill, Mal? We don't...fuck--"
He blinks. Sniffs. He's going to get this out. "This wasn't how this was meant to fucking go, it was meant to be some big fight, or something mad but-- but you do right by each other. By the people that love you. Look out for my family," and they know that Asher means the people I love, not just his flesh and blood, so that means plenty of people in Skyhold too that he's just taken under his wing as well as the Boneflayers and Aura. "Tell my sister I love her?"
Bronson hops up, licks Asher's face. "She'll love you. You know that. But I'm...I'm going to go now, is that okay lad?"
What is it they say about mabari? Smart enough to speak but wise enough not to? Whatever look is in Bronson's eyes is enough for Asher as his breathing tapers off, going still, the hound letting out a mournful howl when the life finally leaves Asher's body.
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If only they had been able to give him a better end. Wardens go down fighting and that's not a bad example to follow. Perhaps if they'd realized earlier, they could have ensured that Asher would have that much at least. It would still hurt, but it would be what he'd wanted, none of this slow dwindling.
And as he speaks to Bronson, her throat closes in. She listens to the slowed breathing until it stills, and then her heart breaks. As Bronson howl's, she slowers her head, shoulders trembling as the sobs she was holding back all this time finally overtake her.