I've got my kit bag, my heavy boots

[hlif]

WHO: Asher Hardie; open
WHAT: Asher arrives in Skyhold, John Cena's theme plays in the distance
WHEN: mid-late Wintermarch; feel free to just bump into him later than his arrival
WHERE: Skyhold, by the healing tents and the stables but if you want to wildcard bumping into him then go for it
NOTES: language most likely, if you'd like to assume past CR then hit me up.

The rest of the Boneflayers make for the tavern almost immediately, a collection of rogues and one annoyed mage abandoning their leader with a pouch of coin to leave Asher alone, just through the main gates of Skyhold trying to coax a tired grumpy bronto to the stables, the wagon behind it groaning with supplies. Meat, vegetables, leather, wool, some wheels of cheese, even some home-brewed ale, all packed high and lashed into the wagon, a gift of support from his family they've all been complaining about since they rumbled through the Hinterlands and up. He might be a big guy but he can't do everything himself, not when there's also a grizzled looking mabari plodding along too.

Most of the people he makes eye contact with seem to be looking away quickly, which y'know, rude but unsurprising when you're Asher's height and tend to look half-feral.

"Look if someone will just point me to the bloody kitchens so I can get rid of this I'll be grateful." Only no one is helping, please help him before someone gets punched.

Comments

[hlif]

"If you know where they are I can have the others go check in, spend some time with them and get them into some fights, shit, I always liked Asaara, knew how to have fun that one." It's a hazard of the job, every mercenary knows that but it doesn't make it easier for the ones left behind. When you fight alongside someone you get to know them better than anyone else ever will, slogging through some of the worst shit life could ever throw at you and Asher's lost people before, but the thought of losing any of his crew now that they've been together this long? It hurts, hurts worse than pretty much every beating he's ever lived thorugh.

"One more reason to rip the bastard involved a new arsehole," he mutters darkly, with that look in his eye that promises hurt and blood, the one he's sported each and every time an insult or blow has been hurled at the people he regards as his.

There's something to be said for poor impulse control. Sometimes. "But you had to leave them there. They expected you to see that and just walk away? I couldn't have done that."

[gatheringstorm]

"Believe me, I nearly didn't. It took the others with me to stop me from doing anything foolish...that and the sweet voice of a rifter woman who would have been upset if I'd gotten myself killed. I could never let her down." Korrin smiles fondly as her thoughts turn to Araceli, but she doesn't really expect Asher to understand any of that. As far as she's aware, he enjoys a good tumble but feelings never enter into it. Good for him, but she wants -needs- more.

"The rest of the Valo-Kas aren't anywhere close, not now. They were in Gwaren for a time, but are now on their way to the Anderfels. I told them they better not get tangled up in Grey Warden business over there thanks to all the weirdness with the Wardens lately, but who knows if they got my last letter before leaving."

[hlif]

“Oh don’t tell me you’ve gone and lost your head for someone, am I going to be the only one that knows how to do this? Wild, free and untamed until something finally lops my head off? That’s disgusting, people settling down like this, but that’s war for you, it happened plenty during and after the occupation.” Seriously Korrin, do not speak of mooning over anyone to him unless it’s going to be crude because you’ll make him sick to his stomach with that kind of talk. If there’s someone that can change Asher’s mind, he’s yet to meet them, he’s grew up too attached to the Avvar idea of non-permanence, especially when his mother threw him out. One brave soul tried to broach ‘abandonment issues’ and promptly got thrown out of the bed. Asher is Asher, no one is going to tame him for more than a few nights if they’re particularly talented at it and that’s all there is to it.

“The Anderfels is just weird, the end. We went up there a few times and I’m pretty sure even Amalia lost the will to do anything. You know, miss ‘I’ll set anything on fire, I’ll set myself on fire’? I hauled us out sharpish. Still, I’ll get the word spread, my mother needs other big loud people to shout at in my absence if they want meals and beds in exchange for doing some manual labour.”

[gatheringstorm]

"I wouldn't mind having them closer, of course. They wouldn't want to be tied down to Skyhold, but given some heads-up and they'd be around if we need them. Your would would get her fill of yelling, that's for sure. Some of them are almost as bad as you." Korrin grins at that, still thinking Asher an honorary member in terms of that. He's as loud and crazy as any of them, and has the same skill for surviving situations he really, really shouldn't.

So she takes another sip, getting lazy with her drinking pace. "Do what you want in your own bed Asher, don't tell me what to do in mine. Go ahead and shag half of Skyhold; some of them definitely need it. But I'm wild enough without doing it your way. Having that woman's regard is worth any price; if I end up disgustingly saccharine, so be it." If Asher can't stomach that, well, it's all in good fun. He rags on her, she dishes it out in return, the cycle continues ever onward.

[hlif]

"You still have the worst with the poetry. What would be better - cutting his head off so we don't have to listen to it, or cutting all our heads off so he never has an audience ever again?" He'll take ex-Carta bullshit, Nasir still playing coy about his past, and Amalia being one bad day away from marrying a rage demon over someone fancying themselves to be a poet.

Korrin speed up, you need to match Asher so it's more fair when they both have to stagger out at the end of the night. "I don't need a bed," and Korrin knows that because caves aren't beds, well not to most people but Asher can sleep anywhere that's vaguely horizontal and not entirely covered in hornets. "I'll shag everyone but the Templars, don't let it be said that I don't have some standards but we're mercenaries, steady doesn't actually figure into that life beyond how you hope the work comes in."

[gatheringstorm]

"Ugh, Kaariss. You have to give him just the right among of hooch to knock him out; give him too much or too little and you'll get drunken poetry, which is too bad to even be 'so bad it's good'. I don't miss that part, at all." Korrin will drink as fast or slow as she wants, Asher. One of them has to be steadier than the other anyway, or it'll end badly.

"Well, there's more than enough work to go around right now and it's all leading back to here sooner or later. I'm content to live in the now; the future will take care of itself, if we even have one and Corypheus doesn't kill us all first. Cheerful thought, hm?"

[hlif]

"Next time try using the thing the hooch comes in to knock him out." If Asher had ever had someone inclined to such a thing, they wouldn't have lasted long in his merry little band. Nothing violent but one can only be subjected to attack from the combined forces of two dwarves and a mage before they realise they are utterly unwelcome and would do well to make themselves scarce while they can.

Still, it'd be funny to inflict that on other people if they could pretend they didn't know him.

"Well unless they pay me extra I'll grab an ale and watch everyone punching down a god, that part definitely was not in the contract I signed."