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

[aforethought]

That raises an eyebrow, but hey, better than the Sarge fucking a literal bear — and blackmail shared is friendship earned.

“South Reach, out in the ass-end of nowhere. You recognize any more’n that, you been two days too far off the road.” Little town by the name of Cloudcatcher, but she ain’t said that name in longer than Mal’s, and Maker knows she ain’t fixing to break that streak no time soon. “Spent a few years in the Marches, after the Blight hit."

Melys glances back, figuring that’s gotta answer a few questions in one. Yeah, I’ve heard of you, ain’t being the least.

(Oh, she's heard of Asher Hardie, and the stories have gotten a little muddled for the telling. Can you fuck a literal bear by association? Through the transitive property, or whatever Sister Marie was always calling it?)

"Fact that you can figure what I'm saying proves that one didn't stick."

Ferelden might be muddled as fuck to some, but at least it's not Starkhaven.

[hlif]

Ah, the few who know how the world really works and don't delude themselves with playing around with pleasantries - a dying breed if ever there was one.

"I've been through South Reach more than once, more when I was a boy and still at home, cheaper to get a kid to do fetching and carrying than to drag hirelings and farmhands with you." Or that's how Stafford Hardie looked at it, and Asher was always big and strong for his age, a boy to get out from under your feet and to take somewhere in a vain attempt to tire him out. It never worked and more often than not he got into scraps with any boys he met because they were new challengers. "You and half the country I reckon. I was in Kirkwall, got out when the Qunari decided to go for a mild rampage. Somehow before it got even crazier."

Because honestly, at the time he lived there and worked in the area, he didn't honestly believe Kirkwall could get worse. But then it did, spectacularly, and they went back to turn up old friends and turned up corpses instead and he's still angry.

(And yes. There are many ways you can fuck a bear. Ask any Avvar though they don't really tell that sort of shit to lowlanders unless you're less of a lowlander because you sprang from the loins their loins got up close and personal with.

Avvar granddads are the best.)

"Some businesses you don't get a choice, lot of angry people who don't like a Fereldan and his friends taking all 'their' jobs. They'd still be their jobs if they weren't shit at what they do."