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

[el_tybs]

Normally this would be a conversation they would laugh at and argue, but this isn't really a laughing kind of situation. "I know Asher. I was just pointing out if they are trouble enough then someone who didn't have to live in a Circle would more then likely do just that." Eat him alive that is, and you wanted him to try and flirt with that - are you really looking out for him or getting him in trouble?

The bitterness doesn't go unnoticed, and Sam just stays quiet to let him rant a bit, lips thinning at hearing it. He's rather familiar with the aspect of lacking 'choice' but how is was put upon him was vastly different then Asher. At least, in some way, he had a place in the world - even if it was behind stone.

"Why did she tell you that?" He didn't know his own mom, but his aunt was hell of a role model and that just didn't seem like something a parent should do.

[hlif]

What's wrong with a little bit of trouble? Puts hair on your chest, gives you good stories to tell over a pint, and isn't this right here a prime example of that whole 'hey, who knows what might happen, we might die tomorrow' shit that people like to go on about when they're about to do something ridiculously lame like get matching tattoos or tell someone how they feel.

Ah. Eleanor Hardie. Where to even begin with Asher's mother who will always be Asher's mother but also not, because a mother is meant to be someone that loves you, not someone that is a knife between your ribs each and every time you see her, sleep under her roof, think about her, speak her name. Going back to see Aura or to crash between jobs, to help out, to organise deliveries, it felt like dying, each and every time.

"Because I was a punishment from the gods. See, she wanted to do things all right and proper. My grandmother, she met my Avvar grandfather during the occupation and had my mother, but then my mother wanted the farm back. So she goes off to do that and meets my father, a proper Denerim merchant. Doesn't want to seem out of place. Doesn't want to look like some terrble sort of savage. Looks very Fereldan. Good proper Andrastian. Denies any whisper, runs her farm right, pays everyone a good honest wage for hard work then she has a strapping boy not long after she's married only the firstborn is more like the child her mother should have had instead of her, he's like a slap in the face. Too big, too loud, likes the wrong stories, doesn't do what she tells him, no amount of the Chant makes him listen to her when he gets into scraps with every boy that says something that sets him off." And that's the thing when you grow up knowing there's something that makes your mother look at you sideways, there's always this itch under your skin that makes it so easy. Makes your fist fly out, and it felt good, still feels good now. "Eventually I got in a fight with a Templar recruit, I was such a shame to the family and I had to go."

[el_tybs]

Nothing wrong with trouble, he just doesn't want that kind. That and he's pretty set at the moment with relationships, he'll be fine, Asher.

"Seems to be the general idea with dealing with Templars and the Chantry. Do something against it and you get in trouble." It doesn't sound like Asher was an easy child to deal with, but just kicking a boy out rather then actually do something productive, not just throw words, doesn't seem like a good way to do things.

"So pretty much getting into fights and trouble since you were little?" Sam had his bullies, and there times he had to fight, but looking for a fight had never been his thing.