faderift | Cold upon the mountain

Entry tags:

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

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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Thanks to her trip to Rivain and then being sent to Halamshiral, Korrin doesn't hear of Asher's condition right away. She just assumes he didn't feel like putting up with Orlesian bullshit and is making himself useful at Skyhold or elsewhere. But when she learns of the truth, the Vashoth woman immediately hits the road. They don't need her in Halamshiral for anything in particular anyway, and she refuses to be away from her Avvar friend's side at a time like this.

It can't be true. This is just a bad relapse and Asher will be fine, once he listens to the healers and lets them do their thing. She has to believe that, not accepting anything else. If her obnoxious Vashoth self hanging around doesn't ensure that, she'll grab Mal and they'll double-team him into recovery.

The moment she passes the fortress' entrance, Korrin's long strides take her to the healing tents. She's not at all interested in being quiet or subtle, calling out the moment she passes its threshold. "Asher?"

At first, Christine is determined to make him better. I will fix this, she assures him. She heals his wounds, eases his pain, and waits. And the coughing continues, and the wounds come back. I will do research, she says next, and off to the library she goes, searching for any information about stray magic an abomination might leave behind to interfere with healing. But she finds nothing. Day after day, Christine tries. The spirit alongside her is confused by their healing having no effect, and Christine feels the same way. Why is his body doing this? It would figure it would be Asher of all people whose body would be as stubborn and infuriating as the man himself.

Christine starts to blame herself. The two of them slept together and she didn't even notice then that anything was wrong. What kind of healer is she? Most days she comes into his tent to dab some scented oil on his pulse points to mask the odor of his wounds that always seems to return no matter how often they're healed or the bandages changed. And then she delves into the library to look for answers.

Nothing helps. And finally she has to walk back to his tent, knowing she has no miracle to save him. Asher may already know that, but until this moment, Christine didn't. Christine doesn't allow herself to fail at things, and when she does, she pushes the anger and the pain back into the far corners of her mind and forges onward, hardly ever crying. It's what she had to do along with the other mages, fleeing from Templars across Orlais and into Ferelden. There was no time for tears then, and she can't let there be tears now. And yet as she enters Asher's tent and asks the Boneflayer in residence for some time alone with the patient, it's clear she's changed. She takes a seat on a stool, her devastation all too clear. She says nothing, because this defeated her. She's failed him, and there are no words she can think to say. Slowly, she reaches out a hand to curl her fingers around his, her body otherwise feeling numb. There is no feeling except the texture of his fingers; everything else has faded away.

Losing patients is nothing new to her. She mourns each loss and it upsets her that she couldn't save them. But the thought of this ridiculous, infuriating, somehow charming, and -- on the whole -- good man no longer being in the world has unexpectedly struck her hard. Perhaps all his bragging and bravado about all the dangerous stunts he'd pulled had set him up as nearly immortal in her eyes. Even now, seeing the evidence of his decline right in front of her, it's hard to accept. It will mean accepting that he'll be gone for good, that she failed him; all of it. Her fingers stroke his skin and her eyes tell him: I am sorry.

Gwenaëlle doesn't really ask permission.

A habit of a life lived with few in a position to deny it to her; she knows where the lines are, and for the most part dances by them without needing much of anyone else's input. She knows that there are tasks in a healing tent that don't require a healer and she knows that she can perform them and she just - turns up, of an afternoon, and gives herself a job to do. She keeps Asher company, rolls and changes bandages, takes what she's given to make poultices and frees up the healers for -

For people who they can save. A plainly awful thought she makes herself not shy from; this is not so new to her. Making him comfortable, keeping him company, being patient and quiet when that's what's needed and a running commentary when it isn't. Guenievre, her elven shadow, fetches down a shaving kit hustled from Maker knows where and she trims his beard neat, as fastidious about the task as if she expects him to go and show it off. As it's just as important, now, when he won't. When it's just his own small dignities, with or without audience.

The free time she has - and she has a great deal of that - is spent at his side, sitting by his cot with her sewing when there's nothing else to occupy herself with, painstakingly embroidering a scene of Asher fighting two dwarves wearing a bear pelt.

Edited 2016-07-26 06:17 (UTC)

An argument is brewing within the tent, a one-sided affair though not for lack of trying on Asher's part from the sounds of things. Korrin might have left Halamshiral but it's Melisende's Orlesian accent that's managing to talk over Asher for now, level, almost measured. Enough of a waver to mean worried.

"-means you stay put."

"Like fuck--" He breaks off to cough, louder than before, longer too. "Grab me some potions, not staying here like--"

"Like a sick person?" Her remark cuts to the bone, right as Korrin arrives and her head snaps up; she's relieved, she's guilty that she feels relieved. There's a curt nod without a greeting as she stalks out leaving Asher to finish coughing, wiping a hand over his mouth as he blinks, trying for a grin.

"Ataash!" You heard nothing, saw nothing, everything's grand, he is absolutely not treading water in the vast oceans of denial, caught in the tide. "Stop looking at me like you just caught me wanking."

There had been a discussion outside Asher's tent (several discussions, as if Asher had either gone deaf, lost his wits, or lost his say in making a decision, and he's not sure which one is more insulting) about going to Christine, fetching her when things got worse but it was always we'll see. At first it wasn't just Asher in denial but in the end, he's the only one left there. The only one stubborn enough to keep battling that tide.

(Or he's clinging to stubborn. Stubborn sounds much better than the other words creeping into his mind like vicious little spiders in the nights when the cold bites.

In the night it's too dark to tell it's more than just blood darkening his fingers when he fings each and every wound to press until he wants to scream.)

Amalia is on watch today, haggard for once in her red leathers with her lips bitten raw and bloody with bruises under her eyes. She trips on the way out, Asher's hand moving to catch her; he laughs (he croaks), says she's clumsy as a colt. Her laughter sounds something an awful lot like crying as she races out as fast as her numb legs will carry her and back to the rest to cry somewhere Asher can't hear her do it.

"S'matter with everyone?" He asks, easing himself up with a bitten-off groan when the world pitches violently to the side, asking in that way of his like he's the sane man and the world's gone mad again. "I was fine last time, dragged me up a mountain, blister from my nipples to the good parts."

Twelve years Asher's lived this life, and this is how he goes.

He's not good with it.

Drifting in and out when his body doesn't listen to him when he wants it to, when it's breaking down on him from something he can't fight no matter how angry he gets, no matter how many aborted escape attempts that leave him wheezing. He can argue with every healer, he can scratch at the poultices until a hand slaps them away. He can down the potions that dull the worst aches or make him sleep.

(That isn't how he wants to go, so he turns away more now, pretends he's asleep already. If he has to die here - he can admit that, in his own head - then he'll do it himself, in his own mind, not drifting away without some say in it.)

The world comes into focus slower, the sound of the needle loud as he turns his head to squint at Gwenaëlle, the smile not sharp the way it should be.

"Thought they'd lopped bits off me." It's meant to be a joke, but it doesn't come out like one since a man knows where all his wounds are and how bad some of them have been. "Will you thank her? The one making me not look like...like what I am." Since he might not have time, since even thinking that has an awful lump of panic and grief and anger catching in his throat.

"Don't!" she scolds, jumping up from her chair so fast all the blood rushes from her head, leaving her dizzy. She sets a hand on his cot and closes her eyes a moment, trying to collect herself. Does he truly not know? He must feel it deep inside. Perhaps he's trying to reassure himself, and she can't blame him for that. What should she do? Should she joke with him and pretend this isn't happening until the day he dies? Would that somehow be better? Or should they say their goodbyes now?

Opening her eyes, Christine sinks back down onto the stool. She's a practical woman, and an honest one.

"I could tell you a very funny lie and we could laugh and ignore things a little while longer, or I could speak the truth. I think I will leave it for you to decide."

Korrin's heard Melisende enough to recognize that tone, and her heart sinks as she hears the cough following it. Dammit, Asher. Nodding as Melisende makes her exit, she sighs heavily and plops down on the chair nearest him.

"If that's how you're spending time here, maybe I should have stayed in Orlais." She smirks faintly, the humor not reaching her eyes. "Nah, it's as pompous and racist as ever, no loss there. Giving Melisende a hard time? Do I need to slip you something from the tavern to help you behave?"

Edited 2016-07-27 00:27 (UTC)

He wasn't there when Asher was brought to the tents, so when he hears that the man was brought back the first thought is amusing, trying to figure what he did this time to land him back here rather then with his own healer - probably pissed Christine off or the like and she dragged him here after. Course when he finds the tent that Asher is being kept in, the faces on his companions' faces were rather sullen, full of pain and grief. Asher wasn't here because of something silly or idiotic, something was seriously wrong.

Before he even gets to go in the dwarves recognize him - the weird human who turned into a fluffball - and take him to the side before he can enter. The explanation is short, since it seems they're having a hard time talking about it. It takes several minutes for Sam to think about the news, fully process it. It just didn't seem right.

After a time though Sam approaches the tent again, and slowly pulls back the tent flap and enters. "Back here again?" There's a smile on his face - he's trying - and he tries to make it sound like he's teasing - it sounds strained even to him.

(More often than not, Gwenaëlle knows when he's feigning it; she says let him be, he's sleeping and pesters one of the healers to reheat the tea that had been brought with a bit of fire, later, discreetly slips in something that could be described generously as 'medicinal' to make it a bit more appealing.)

"Guenievre," she supplies the name (she could tell him the truth, who will he tell? the lady of the skies?), lowering her hands a little in her lap but not immediately setting aside her sewing; she hasn't managed to poke herself in the fingers but she did break a needle on her thimble earlier, so she isn't immune to the stressors at play, just...accustomed. "I will. I thought it was a good idea, but I don't..." A wiggle of her fingers. What the fuck does she know about trimming a man's beard. "She knows, she did for my lord. I thought you'd like that."

Managing a bit of a fuck you to the Comte even from his deathbed, that's no small achievement, probably. She isn't sure he's quite at the making those jokes point, though, keeps it to herself.

Cullen doesn't hear about it right away. It's no one's fault. He is a busy man, he's still in Orlais, and things that are intended for him don't always make it that far. A name on a list becomes a number on a list. Or perhaps no one thought to tell him at all. True, one battle doesn't make them brothers. Still, eventually, the news finds its way to him. In a manner of speaking. He gets a complaint about a loud and disruptive patient in the healing tents his first morning back. The description is vague enough that it might not be. Actually, no, that's a lie. Cullen's just hoping that it might not be Asher, and seeing vagueness where there is none.

It's a few hours before he can go down himself, and he feels bad about that. He does go, though, ignoring anyone who might want to stop for a word on the way. The only one he allows to trail after him is Puppy. Partly because of the effect puppies have on people. Partly, and more selfishly, because Puppy needs to know what death is at some point. He needs to know where the training and games he plays with Cullen and Cullen's soldiers will lead one day when the playing stops.

He lets himself in, a small sliver of him still hoping to see a face he doesn't recognize. In a strange way, he gets his wish. Asher looks like a pale shadow of himself. It hurts more than Cullen thought it would.

Edited 2016-07-28 22:22 (UTC)

"Christine…" It's such an effort to find words that for the moment Asher is content to reach for her hand - and in truth that in itself is tiring - and stroke it for a while, trying to think of the things he'd say, the other times in other tents. When he ran his fingers through her hair, when he'd tease her about going native. Asher has laughed at such awful things. She hasn't seen that. Hasn't seen him on the battlefield coughing up his own blood and roaring.

But this isn't that, he doesn't know how to explain the difference, doesn't know how to explain that he's ashamed.

"I'm cold," he says instead because that's at least the truth, as he attempts to fight the blankets up. "I'm cold. I don't-- I'm a Reaver, why am I cold, did someone do something?" Amalia tried to burn the fever out, and the dragon blood made him run hot so why is he cold, he doesn't understand and his other hand is refusing to cooperate in getting the blankets up as Bronson tries to pull them up with his mouth, whining until Asher pats him roughly, brow furrowed, chewing his chapped lips bloody as he does it.

"Liadan would shoot you if you did, and Yngvi and Gunnar are doing some sort of stop and--" Breaking off to cough he turns away from her, eyes screwed shut because somehow it isn't as bad when he's not as aware of his vision greying out when his eyes aren't open anyway. His body spasms with it, Bronson's head popping up from where he's stationed between the bed and the opening of the tent to keep guard or fetch help until Asher can lie back, wiping a hand roughly over his face.

He gets most of the blood, part of his beard is already stained the colour of rust anyway. "Stop and search," he continues. As if nothing happened. As if he can see and the world isn't a blur.

"Where's Mal?" Maybe the wheeze disguises that he sounds anxious, but probably not.

The Boneflayers are family, for all that they might be rude and loud and utterly obnoxious to one another; Asher was bigger and louder than life. Asher took risks, Asher charged into every sort of mess but Asher was always laughing at the end of it, covered in blood that wasn't his for the most. He got better like he always did and then--

Everyone eventually loses a member of a mercenary crew to death or injury. No one ever thought it would be Asher. Not even now do they want to admit that it's going to be Asher.

When the fever isn't gripping Asher, rendering him a sweating and sometimes delirious mess then he's gripped by a chill that has him shivering, teeth chattering so hard they hurt, the sweat cooling on his skin. The poultices and bandages itch something fierce and he's in the midst of trying to tear them off now that Liadan's slipped out to breathe (it's hard, she's lost so many people, she's trying to hard and the more Asher tries to be himself the worse it is for her).

"Someone threatened to paralysis glyph me to the bed if I tried to escape." Instead of the usual near-absence of an indoor voice, coughing has reduced Asher to croaking, blinking bleary-eyed at Sam as he keep scratching at one of the poultices plastered to him. "You could just go be a distraction for me, right?"

"S'long name. Nice name, like yours." Names Asher can't say without mangling them, most of which he does for fun (or to wrinkle noses at fancy parties) but not when he feels like this. When each and every inch of him just feels wrong. It takes a lot of vigorous rubbing that's more like poking to get his eyes to stop blurring quite so uselessly - the last time he felt so bad he was younger and he wasn't a Reaver and a greatsword ripped him open from the neck to the small of his back, and Melisende gripped his face as they stitched him.

He laughs, and he does't really regret it when he chokes. He might not get many more laughs in this life after all. "Should send the lads to put some in his tea or whatever. Call it rustic." There's an attempt at pointing at her work but his hands (any part of him honestly but he'll focus on one part at a time, if he thinks about the whole lot it's too overwhelming) don't always feel like his hands right now. "You've made us all handsome."

It might not mean much in the grand scheme. Asher has revelled in joking that he's dirty, hairy, smelly, that he'd get lost in a great big bath. But when he sighs quietly, because it's just them, because there are some things that are different with her- "Can't go to my Lady looking a mess, can I?" Softer again, smaller than Asher perhaps has any right to be, small as he felt twelve years ago on a doorstep with a hand around his bicep, burning hot as a brand, heavy as iron:

"It isn't fair."

That awful cough...if Korrin could hate any noise more, terror demon shrieks aside, it would be that. She's on her feet in a moment, reaching out...but there's nothing she can do to help him fight that foe. This isn't the Red Templars on the Storm Coast or countless other missions. After a moment, she sinks back onto the chair, her tone softening.

"He'll be here any time. You don't think he'd miss out on seeing his 'honey bear', do you? And if you want me to get you something, the others can just fucking deal. Ale isn't going to make that cough any worse."

Another one of her people is dying, and Merrill is trying desperately not to be so selfish as to think why does this keep happening to me? over it. When news about Hercules had reached her, she had wished she had known; now that she knows about Asher, she almost wishes it was reversed once again. This is not a fast death; Merrill is not a healer, not with magic and barely with herbs, but she knows this much. Being the First means she saw a lot, and Asher is not the first person she's seen with heat rolling off him and a strange, unhealthy scent in the air.

She hopes that he will be the last, even as she wishes it weren't happening at all and knows that he likely won't be.

Bronson gets a scratch behind his ears, a few murmuring in elvish words; the hound is as scarred as his master, and a part of Merrill is scared that the dog will not survive much longer than the man. She's definitely certain he knows what's happening, and when she takes a seat at Asher's side, she pats her knee for Bronson to rest his head on, if he'd like.

(There is a knife, on her belt. She could try and use her blood to heal his, but- she doesn't know if it would work, knows it could easily do more harm than good. Still, her fingers drag softly against the hilt before she rests her hand on Asher's arm.)

"Are you awake?"

Sam's seen a lot of patients in a lot of different states, but it certainly doesn't prepare him to seeing Asher bed ridden as he is. He's not as lively even if he's trying to sound it, the voice not sounding quite right though the stubbornness is the same.

"I'm pretty sure they'd see right through it, seeing as they're probably listening through the tent cloth. That and they'd probably ban me from coming in the next time." Not to mention that it didn't seem like Asher could even stand in his current state. "I could probably alleviate some of the itchiness from the poultices though if that'll help?"

"Here," she says, tugging up his blankets and giving the dog a look. Christine doesn't like dogs. They're smelly and loud and behave horribly. She's half tempted to scold the dog for drooling on the blanket, but she holds back, and instead she rests a hand on Asher's arm.

"Do you think you can roll onto your side? I will get in and keep you warm."

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?"

It isn't.

He's one of the biggest people she knows - maybe not physically (any more) but the biggest, the most alive, vibrant and defiant. A month ago the idea of a world that doesn't contain Asher Hardie would've sounded laughably impossible; she thinks she won't have quite accustomed herself to it until long after he's gone, this holding pattern of steadiness what she gives now because he needs it more than to have to hold someone else's hand through the unfairness of his death. She can hold his, she thinks; a moment later she does, hesitant, feather-light that even in this state he can easily shrug free of if he prefers. (Her thimble has warmed up while she works, still an odd metal note in softness.)

"Nobody's god cares about fair," she says, quieter, and it's the firmest thing she's ever said on the subject of faith, one she would ordinarily sidle away from at great speed. "But I thought she might take you more kindly with a sharper line, all the same."

Annegret never complained about fair or unfair but it had burned in her, Gwenaëlle remembers. The room had always been too warm, and her manner waspish by late afternoon; it still feels heavy with the said and unsaid. She doesn't think her father even notices the way it still never occurs to him to set foot in the wing of the house that had been hers. Guenievre doesn't go there, either, with her nice name that sounds like Gwenaëlle's - not an accident, that.

After a beat, "I'll stay as long as you like."

Nodding because it means he doesn't have to speak through a throat red raw from hacking his lungs up, or from shouting when nightmares grip him in the midst of the fevers, old phantoms from years ago surfacing once again, he lies still. Bronson pops his head up on the low bed, shoves his face under Asher's hand because sometimes Asher hasn't the strength to lift it on his own so he helps in his own small way.

"Thought he'd had more delusions or was off singing songs to prettier people than me. Was set to be all offended. Pass me that." He points to a waterskin that's filled with some cooled tea and 'medicinal' herbs left by a friend; she understands where others don't, he's grateful for something that's not another potion forced upon him. "They're my family, they love me better than nearly all of mine does. Let them be like that instead of…" Instead of choking back tears. Better to make threats against a thing they can stop. Asher wishes he could do that.

"He's awake." Melisende uncurls herself from a corner of the tent, the most alert of the Boneflayers no matter how many watches she takes but alienage life for you. "I'll give you two some privacy." If she is guilty, well her guilt is an old thing for taking a boy green as summer grass and seeing him for what she wanted to. They made their peace with that but Maker she didn't think her Asher boy would go first.

Bronson is happy for attention; Asher isn't hoisting him up on his shoulders, no one is giving him their dinner, there aren't the scratches behind the ears and the forehead pressed to his. Asher smells bad and wrong, his sweat rank and the kaddis washed away. No amount of herbs will cover the smell of blood going bad, but Merrill is nice, he likes Merrill. Mal likes Merrill and Asher likes Merrill too, likes her enough he tries to smile but it pulls too tight, feels lopsided like it's going to slide clean off his face if he's not careful.

Why was he better at this when he was young and angry? Why is it so hard now? Why are the gods being cruel?

"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this? Mal Reynolds is going to feel all hurt and offended." Humour is his last shield but it's all battered and splintered, and half the pieces are sticking into him.

Last time Asher had the fight left in him. This time Asher is bargaining with the gods and only the Lady is listening with Asher being the one that doesn't want to hear her. He isn't ready, it isn't fair, this isn't how I'm meant to go, angry little boy words hurled around inside his head the way he threw his fists only the fight exhausts him instead of sustaining him. He isn't ready.

(He's afraid. He hasn't been afraid in twelve years and the shame of it burns hotter than the fever.)

"So be sneaky. Get Ellana to come help, she can be a honey badger, she'll cause a scene. I brought you sausage." This is how you repay him Sam, you repay him with logic? Disgraceful. "Do they put rashvine in these? What's the point, just...just let the air get at them, I hate the smell of the herbs more than the smell of-- the smell of me."

Bronson's a good boy, Christine. Saved Asher's life. Made Asher even realise he had a life that was worth having; anything Asher knows about looking after himself he figured out nursing that dog back to health.

"If I face the tent." It takes effort to figure it out, so the best way is to just do it because that's how he's always lived his life, why stop now? Feels odd. Being the one exposing his back. She's seen it, everyone's seen Asher but this is different, when he feels small. Feels less and weak and pathetic, the great huge line of the scar that almost took his life ten years ago there for her to see from nape to the small of his back. "Mind my hip, keeps oozing, don't want to--"

Don't want to ruin you, he almost says, but that sounds like something his mother would accuse him of. Thinking of her just hurts, an old wound that should have stopped aching but still manages to throb now and then.

"Don't want to dirty you." That doesn't sound much better, not when he'd make a joke of it but all of that feels so very far away now.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 6

Cold upon the mountain

no subject

no subject

semi open.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

is the 6th too late?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject