It's been a long night, for all of them. Ashton didn't think it was fair to say that the night had only been long for him. He wasn't the only one there, after all. After the battle was over and done with, Ashton had to haul himself out of the lower deck-- at which point he may or may not have spent a couple of moments simply laying on the deck before rising. He had helped clear the deck of the bodies, more than happy to let the ones he left under decks sit. He tossed Leech's body over the side with little more fanfare than he would a simply chore. Throughout it all he kept his tongue about him, still tired from the brawl below decks. Once the deck was clear and Garrath managed to pull himself to the helm, Ashton took a spot furthest away, near the bow where he simply collapsed and leaned against the railing.
What else needed to be said? The deed was done, their cargo liberated, and the day won. Night-- technically speaking he supposed. He leaned forward and shoved the rucksack over some, so the blasted Qunari book would stop poking his spine. Despite all the good done that night, he still didn't feel all that good. He didn't know what he expected. A weight off of his shoulders, a pit in his belly filled, but he felt neither. The only thing he felt was the aches and pain in his body, and tiredness from missing a night of sleep.
Nostariel was weary, too, and not just from the fighting. It was the aftermath of it that had drained her mostâpatching up the injuries, nursing what potions alone would not quite suffice to heal. It wasnât that she minded, and indeed, sheâd had a lot of practice by this point, but the extra drain on her reserves of magic was just enough to let it hit her how tired she was. The task now was mostly just to steer the boat into harbor, and she chose to leave that to those that knew anything at all about ships. She was not one of them.
Instead of uselessly standing about wringing her hands while Lucien, Garrath, Rilien, and Sparrow did most of the work, she chose to join Ash up at the prow of the ship. It wasnât lost on her that he wasnât his usual self, and she thought she could understand why. Sometimes things simply had to be done, but their completion brought no joyâonly a certain sense of finality. She knew that a similar task lay ahead of her, but it wasnât something she wanted to think about right now. Instead, she lowered herself to sit beside him, close enough that the knee of her crossed leg hit his. She stared out at the dark water, or what of it was visible beyond the halo of the ship lights. "Youâre out of the business, now. For good, if you want to be.â She thought it might help to remind him of what had really come of this. She had the sense that this had been something hanging over his head for a whileâsurely, that it no longer was counted for something important. "A free man, I believe they call people like you.â
She smiled, turning her head a bit to glance over at him. She was happy for him, but in some ways, the words reminded her that she would always be bound to something. Even if she should ever leave the Wardens, cease to take their orders and assume their missions for her own, she would never cease to be a Warden the way he had just ceased to be a smuggler. It made her feel a little envious, and that made her ashamed. But more than any of it, she was glad for him. He could do whatever he wanted, now.
It was the little touch to his knee that brought a tiny smile to his drawn face. It was the little things like that that mattered. He twitched his own leg just enough to rub back against her knee. "I thought the same thing a couple of days ago," Ashton confided, reaching up and grabbing the edge of the railing. "I'd like nothing else than to wash my hand of the business and be done with it," He said. Maybe she was right now. The only one with any hold over him was floating dead in the water, and he trusted Garrath had enough sense to not come knocking. Even so, even though he desparately wanted to believe it, he knew he couldn't just be free of it just like that.
"Free," Ashton said with air quotations, followed by a hollow chuckle. He'd never be free of it, he couldn't simply forget. Even if he could, he wasn't sure he would want to. Sometimes, one needed to remember their mistakes in order to never repeat him. If he was truly free, then he was a poor example of a free man. "Out of the business," He repeated to her, "But not free." He let those words hang in the air for a moment, to allow for her to digest him. When he did finally move again, it was to point straight ahead, toward the horizon. "The sun should be coming up soon," He said, letting his hand drop where it was. It landed on his knee and then bounced onto her own where he left it.
He tilted his head and squinted his eyes, and sure enough a vague color of amber slowly began to rise in the indicated direction. It wasn't the first sunrise he'd ever seen, nor would it be his last if he had anything to say about it. It was however the first one he'd watched with her. Sunset yes, sunrise no. "During my little er... Sojourn, I watched many a sun rise over that horizon. Thought to myself it's just another day every time I did," He said simply.
Then he laughed again and swung his head toward Nostariel, hovering perhaps a little closer than was necessary. "I'm not kidding myself. What I did here means nothing to those people I left on the boat all those years ago. I can't be free from that. That's my burden to carry until the day I die," Even though he said the words, he seemed to be unaffected by them, like had long accepted the consequences for his actions. He wasn't looking for absolution anymore, for he'd find none. He just had to live with it for just another day.
"Yes,â she agreed softly, reaching a hand over to lay over the top of the one on his knee and tangling her fingers with his. "It is. And nobody else can carry it for you. But that doesnât mean that what you did here today, for these people, was any less good. We have no hope of changing what was, but we can still affect what will be. Thatâs the part of you thatâs been freed, now.â Sheâd never meant to imply that he could simply forget everything that had happened to him. Sheâd like him less if he was the kind of person that could, honestly. "Thereâs a difference between forgetting and letting go.â It was a subtle difference, perhaps even a nuanced one. But it was also one that she was learning to appreciate.
Such nearness as existed now between them would once have unnerved her, but it didnât anymore. Instead, she enjoyed it, sighing an exhale, and letting herself lean her side against his. She felt heavy with her fatigue, but it didnât seem so weighty, with her cheek pressed into his arm. She wasnât nearly tall enough to properly reach his shoulder, but this was comfortable enough.
A glimmer of Ashton's good humor returned at that and he found himself smiling despite himself. "That's why I have you, to remind me in case I forget," He said gently with a chuckle. He withdrew his hand from Nostariel's and instead draped it over her shoulders. He then drew her in closer, ignoring the dull ache he still felt in his ribs. "Give me a couple of days to rest and heal, I'm sure I'll be feeling a lot more free. Right now I just feel all tired," He said. Even as the words drifted out of his mouth. Despite it all, he was beginning to feel a little bit more free every moment he spent with her.
"What? You aren't going to ask how I saved all of your lives?" He teased with that grin of his. "Surely you must have seen the grand spectacle that was me missing the entire boat." He said with barely contained laughter. He could properly laugh, what with his ribs being in the shape they were in.
"You know,â she replied with a touch of wry amusement, settling into his side with a sort of languid comfort that only came with extreme fatigue, "I didnât actually see you go overboard. I was rather preoccupied at the timeâand Iâm glad I was. I think I might have done something stupid, like let the others know where you were, or, you know⊠dive in after you. I donât swim very well, and I expect that would have made things worse rather than better.â She liked to think she wouldnât have been quite that silly, but she knew that some part of her was very irrational when it came to the possibility of losing him like sheâd lost so many other people sheâd cared about.
He obviously wanted her to ask, though, and she would admit to at least a little bit of curiosity, though she could guess how it must have gone. Regardless, she decided to indulge him. It wasnât like it troubled her to ask, after allâand he did like to spin a good story, especially the ones about himself. She remembered Sophiaâs party and his recounting of the dragon incident with a smile. "All right, Messereâregale me. However did you manage to get back up onto the boat after your unceremonious departure?â
Ashton had chosen to wisely ignore the first part. He could stand to bear her throwing herself into the water after him so he simply didn't. He just filed away a mental note to never fall into the water when she was around. Instead, he chuckled at her prodding and then cut the laugh short. "Oh, it's the not being able to laugh properly that hurts the most," He said with a whimsical grin. Switching back to the story, he took on the same tone as Nostariel did and recounted his misguided adventure. "Well my pretty little Nostariel, it should be obvious. I climbed," He said teasing. He then paused for a moment to collect the next couple of words he was about to use and then continue. "Never in my days had I imagined that something called a murderhole would save my life. But there it is. I was falling but managed to grab one, nearly jerking my shoulder out of its socket when I did."
He forgot to mention that his arm actually did come out of its socket and he had to pop it back in, but he believed it best to leave that part out. No use in making her worry over something that had happened earlier. For a minute he began to question if telling the whole story was even worth it. But he was already too far in, his boot already scrubbing the back of his tongue. He'd have to tell her now. "I climbed in and found out that I wasn't as alone as I would have enjoyed. The lower decks were filled with the thugs, and I had to fight my way up," He said. And they didn't let him go by easily. His usual smile wavered for a moment as he spoke, "There were... A lot of them. None of them too keen to let me see the sky again," He said, his tone slowly draining humor.
He was alone down there, no one up top even knowing he had missed the boat, knowing that he'd found himself stuck in its bowels. And he felt that loneliness. It was just him and a bunch of Leech's very best and very pissed friends. There were a couple of moments he could have very well died down there. A blade coming too close to his throat, a spear meant for his heart, the punch he'd taken to the face. But he fought, tooth and nail to get back to the top. He fought until his nails began to bleed and then he fought some more. "I almost died a couple of times," He said with the levity normally reserved for his quips.
Then he chuckled again, this time life filling his voice. "But I couldn't do that. Nope. See, there's this girl right? She would miss me something awful if I did something stupid like die. I couldn't do that to her," He said, the whismy draining as he spoke until only the honest truth remained. Nostariel had already lost so much, he wasn't about to be added to that pile. He wouldn't do that to her. Not ever. He had a promise to keep, even if it wasn't one spoken aloud.
It was so easy to become desensitized to their own mortality, really. Even she, who healed them so often, who saw the worse of the cuts and the breaks and the blood, could still manage to look at them, at her friends, and believe that there was not force in Thedas that could kill them, could bring them low. They were something else to her, in the midst of a battle, that cacophony of clashes and light-show of flashing steel and magic. Something far beyond flesh and blood. Sheâd always wondered if perhaps she hadnât read too many heroic stories when she was young, for she tended always to want to fit them into those paradigms, and occasionallyânot often, but sometimesâthey disappeared into them. She looked, and saw something immortal. She saw it in Ithilian and Amalia, a matched pair of blades unbreakable, and in Lucien, the unfaltering aegis. In Sophia, a flickering flame against the dark, and Aurora, unbending determination. In Rilien, so pale and perfectly-composed he could have been a ghost. Even in Sparrow, clawing up through the bog sheâd sunk intoâand never once had it crossed Nostarielâs mind that she would fail.
But she saw it most of all in him. Perhaps it was because she was always so near. She knew there was much more to all of them than that, that there was faltering and breaking and misstepping done and still to come, but it was these timeless features of them that endured. Something in their strength of character that weathered any and all storms sent their way. Sheâd never met anyone like them, like him.
Being reminded that they bled like everyone else was important. It was one of the reasons she took to her work with as much deliberateness if she did. Should she forget that they were made of nothing more sturdy than flesh, she might well make the same mistake a third time, and lose them. So⊠she was not horrified by his accounting of what had occurred. It did not frighten her. She simply listened, and was reminded. It might even be a good thing, though of course she did not see him being injured as a good thing, not really.
At the end of the story, she pulled away a bit, enough so that she could look up at his face without breaking her neck. "I really would, you know,â she said softly. Sometimes with the way he said things, it was hard to tell how much he actually meant and how much was just sort of an indulgence of things sheâd said. Something about Ash that bothered her sometimes was that he didnât seem to fully understand just how much he mattered to her. He might joke about it, but he tended to value himself below other people, and she knew a lot of that had to do with what he felt he deserved for what heâd done. She wanted him to want to keep going and see everything through for his own sake, not just hers. Nostariel knew too well what it was like to have a single lens of focus through which to view the world. Sheâd once done what she did for one reason only, and when that had been lost to her, sheâd seen little point in doing or being anything. She didnât want that for him, nor for herself again. It wasnât healthy to live only for others.
"But thatâs not the reason it would be stupid.â She wondered if he understood what she was trying to say.
A light smile crossed his lips as he averted his gaze and nodded. Right again she was. She always had the habit of putting him back on the right path. No matter how far he strayed she was always there to rope him back in heading toward the sun. He joked, he laughed, he hardly took anything serious. He played the part of the fool just to hide how empty he really felt. But then there she was, sitting next to him. She probably didn't know it, but she was steadily filling that pit up inside him. He didn't feel quite so empty when she was around.
"Then it's a good thing I didn't," He said. It was hard trying to live for himself, but slowly he'd learn. There was nothing stopping him now. He'd proved to himself that if faced with the same choices of his past he'd choose a different one. He wasn't the same man who had ran away all those years. There had been hesitation this time, yes, but next time there would be none. He looked over the railing and saw the sun rising against a caramel colored sky and he could do nothing else but smile. He pointed toward the sun and then turned back to her, something more lighting in his eyes.
"It's not just another day. It's another day I'm alive."
What else needed to be said? The deed was done, their cargo liberated, and the day won. Night-- technically speaking he supposed. He leaned forward and shoved the rucksack over some, so the blasted Qunari book would stop poking his spine. Despite all the good done that night, he still didn't feel all that good. He didn't know what he expected. A weight off of his shoulders, a pit in his belly filled, but he felt neither. The only thing he felt was the aches and pain in his body, and tiredness from missing a night of sleep.
Nostariel was weary, too, and not just from the fighting. It was the aftermath of it that had drained her mostâpatching up the injuries, nursing what potions alone would not quite suffice to heal. It wasnât that she minded, and indeed, sheâd had a lot of practice by this point, but the extra drain on her reserves of magic was just enough to let it hit her how tired she was. The task now was mostly just to steer the boat into harbor, and she chose to leave that to those that knew anything at all about ships. She was not one of them.
Instead of uselessly standing about wringing her hands while Lucien, Garrath, Rilien, and Sparrow did most of the work, she chose to join Ash up at the prow of the ship. It wasnât lost on her that he wasnât his usual self, and she thought she could understand why. Sometimes things simply had to be done, but their completion brought no joyâonly a certain sense of finality. She knew that a similar task lay ahead of her, but it wasnât something she wanted to think about right now. Instead, she lowered herself to sit beside him, close enough that the knee of her crossed leg hit his. She stared out at the dark water, or what of it was visible beyond the halo of the ship lights. "Youâre out of the business, now. For good, if you want to be.â She thought it might help to remind him of what had really come of this. She had the sense that this had been something hanging over his head for a whileâsurely, that it no longer was counted for something important. "A free man, I believe they call people like you.â
She smiled, turning her head a bit to glance over at him. She was happy for him, but in some ways, the words reminded her that she would always be bound to something. Even if she should ever leave the Wardens, cease to take their orders and assume their missions for her own, she would never cease to be a Warden the way he had just ceased to be a smuggler. It made her feel a little envious, and that made her ashamed. But more than any of it, she was glad for him. He could do whatever he wanted, now.
It was the little touch to his knee that brought a tiny smile to his drawn face. It was the little things like that that mattered. He twitched his own leg just enough to rub back against her knee. "I thought the same thing a couple of days ago," Ashton confided, reaching up and grabbing the edge of the railing. "I'd like nothing else than to wash my hand of the business and be done with it," He said. Maybe she was right now. The only one with any hold over him was floating dead in the water, and he trusted Garrath had enough sense to not come knocking. Even so, even though he desparately wanted to believe it, he knew he couldn't just be free of it just like that.
"Free," Ashton said with air quotations, followed by a hollow chuckle. He'd never be free of it, he couldn't simply forget. Even if he could, he wasn't sure he would want to. Sometimes, one needed to remember their mistakes in order to never repeat him. If he was truly free, then he was a poor example of a free man. "Out of the business," He repeated to her, "But not free." He let those words hang in the air for a moment, to allow for her to digest him. When he did finally move again, it was to point straight ahead, toward the horizon. "The sun should be coming up soon," He said, letting his hand drop where it was. It landed on his knee and then bounced onto her own where he left it.
He tilted his head and squinted his eyes, and sure enough a vague color of amber slowly began to rise in the indicated direction. It wasn't the first sunrise he'd ever seen, nor would it be his last if he had anything to say about it. It was however the first one he'd watched with her. Sunset yes, sunrise no. "During my little er... Sojourn, I watched many a sun rise over that horizon. Thought to myself it's just another day every time I did," He said simply.
Then he laughed again and swung his head toward Nostariel, hovering perhaps a little closer than was necessary. "I'm not kidding myself. What I did here means nothing to those people I left on the boat all those years ago. I can't be free from that. That's my burden to carry until the day I die," Even though he said the words, he seemed to be unaffected by them, like had long accepted the consequences for his actions. He wasn't looking for absolution anymore, for he'd find none. He just had to live with it for just another day.
"Yes,â she agreed softly, reaching a hand over to lay over the top of the one on his knee and tangling her fingers with his. "It is. And nobody else can carry it for you. But that doesnât mean that what you did here today, for these people, was any less good. We have no hope of changing what was, but we can still affect what will be. Thatâs the part of you thatâs been freed, now.â Sheâd never meant to imply that he could simply forget everything that had happened to him. Sheâd like him less if he was the kind of person that could, honestly. "Thereâs a difference between forgetting and letting go.â It was a subtle difference, perhaps even a nuanced one. But it was also one that she was learning to appreciate.
Such nearness as existed now between them would once have unnerved her, but it didnât anymore. Instead, she enjoyed it, sighing an exhale, and letting herself lean her side against his. She felt heavy with her fatigue, but it didnât seem so weighty, with her cheek pressed into his arm. She wasnât nearly tall enough to properly reach his shoulder, but this was comfortable enough.
A glimmer of Ashton's good humor returned at that and he found himself smiling despite himself. "That's why I have you, to remind me in case I forget," He said gently with a chuckle. He withdrew his hand from Nostariel's and instead draped it over her shoulders. He then drew her in closer, ignoring the dull ache he still felt in his ribs. "Give me a couple of days to rest and heal, I'm sure I'll be feeling a lot more free. Right now I just feel all tired," He said. Even as the words drifted out of his mouth. Despite it all, he was beginning to feel a little bit more free every moment he spent with her.
"What? You aren't going to ask how I saved all of your lives?" He teased with that grin of his. "Surely you must have seen the grand spectacle that was me missing the entire boat." He said with barely contained laughter. He could properly laugh, what with his ribs being in the shape they were in.
"You know,â she replied with a touch of wry amusement, settling into his side with a sort of languid comfort that only came with extreme fatigue, "I didnât actually see you go overboard. I was rather preoccupied at the timeâand Iâm glad I was. I think I might have done something stupid, like let the others know where you were, or, you know⊠dive in after you. I donât swim very well, and I expect that would have made things worse rather than better.â She liked to think she wouldnât have been quite that silly, but she knew that some part of her was very irrational when it came to the possibility of losing him like sheâd lost so many other people sheâd cared about.
He obviously wanted her to ask, though, and she would admit to at least a little bit of curiosity, though she could guess how it must have gone. Regardless, she decided to indulge him. It wasnât like it troubled her to ask, after allâand he did like to spin a good story, especially the ones about himself. She remembered Sophiaâs party and his recounting of the dragon incident with a smile. "All right, Messereâregale me. However did you manage to get back up onto the boat after your unceremonious departure?â
Ashton had chosen to wisely ignore the first part. He could stand to bear her throwing herself into the water after him so he simply didn't. He just filed away a mental note to never fall into the water when she was around. Instead, he chuckled at her prodding and then cut the laugh short. "Oh, it's the not being able to laugh properly that hurts the most," He said with a whimsical grin. Switching back to the story, he took on the same tone as Nostariel did and recounted his misguided adventure. "Well my pretty little Nostariel, it should be obvious. I climbed," He said teasing. He then paused for a moment to collect the next couple of words he was about to use and then continue. "Never in my days had I imagined that something called a murderhole would save my life. But there it is. I was falling but managed to grab one, nearly jerking my shoulder out of its socket when I did."
He forgot to mention that his arm actually did come out of its socket and he had to pop it back in, but he believed it best to leave that part out. No use in making her worry over something that had happened earlier. For a minute he began to question if telling the whole story was even worth it. But he was already too far in, his boot already scrubbing the back of his tongue. He'd have to tell her now. "I climbed in and found out that I wasn't as alone as I would have enjoyed. The lower decks were filled with the thugs, and I had to fight my way up," He said. And they didn't let him go by easily. His usual smile wavered for a moment as he spoke, "There were... A lot of them. None of them too keen to let me see the sky again," He said, his tone slowly draining humor.
He was alone down there, no one up top even knowing he had missed the boat, knowing that he'd found himself stuck in its bowels. And he felt that loneliness. It was just him and a bunch of Leech's very best and very pissed friends. There were a couple of moments he could have very well died down there. A blade coming too close to his throat, a spear meant for his heart, the punch he'd taken to the face. But he fought, tooth and nail to get back to the top. He fought until his nails began to bleed and then he fought some more. "I almost died a couple of times," He said with the levity normally reserved for his quips.
Then he chuckled again, this time life filling his voice. "But I couldn't do that. Nope. See, there's this girl right? She would miss me something awful if I did something stupid like die. I couldn't do that to her," He said, the whismy draining as he spoke until only the honest truth remained. Nostariel had already lost so much, he wasn't about to be added to that pile. He wouldn't do that to her. Not ever. He had a promise to keep, even if it wasn't one spoken aloud.
It was so easy to become desensitized to their own mortality, really. Even she, who healed them so often, who saw the worse of the cuts and the breaks and the blood, could still manage to look at them, at her friends, and believe that there was not force in Thedas that could kill them, could bring them low. They were something else to her, in the midst of a battle, that cacophony of clashes and light-show of flashing steel and magic. Something far beyond flesh and blood. Sheâd always wondered if perhaps she hadnât read too many heroic stories when she was young, for she tended always to want to fit them into those paradigms, and occasionallyânot often, but sometimesâthey disappeared into them. She looked, and saw something immortal. She saw it in Ithilian and Amalia, a matched pair of blades unbreakable, and in Lucien, the unfaltering aegis. In Sophia, a flickering flame against the dark, and Aurora, unbending determination. In Rilien, so pale and perfectly-composed he could have been a ghost. Even in Sparrow, clawing up through the bog sheâd sunk intoâand never once had it crossed Nostarielâs mind that she would fail.
But she saw it most of all in him. Perhaps it was because she was always so near. She knew there was much more to all of them than that, that there was faltering and breaking and misstepping done and still to come, but it was these timeless features of them that endured. Something in their strength of character that weathered any and all storms sent their way. Sheâd never met anyone like them, like him.
Being reminded that they bled like everyone else was important. It was one of the reasons she took to her work with as much deliberateness if she did. Should she forget that they were made of nothing more sturdy than flesh, she might well make the same mistake a third time, and lose them. So⊠she was not horrified by his accounting of what had occurred. It did not frighten her. She simply listened, and was reminded. It might even be a good thing, though of course she did not see him being injured as a good thing, not really.
At the end of the story, she pulled away a bit, enough so that she could look up at his face without breaking her neck. "I really would, you know,â she said softly. Sometimes with the way he said things, it was hard to tell how much he actually meant and how much was just sort of an indulgence of things sheâd said. Something about Ash that bothered her sometimes was that he didnât seem to fully understand just how much he mattered to her. He might joke about it, but he tended to value himself below other people, and she knew a lot of that had to do with what he felt he deserved for what heâd done. She wanted him to want to keep going and see everything through for his own sake, not just hers. Nostariel knew too well what it was like to have a single lens of focus through which to view the world. Sheâd once done what she did for one reason only, and when that had been lost to her, sheâd seen little point in doing or being anything. She didnât want that for him, nor for herself again. It wasnât healthy to live only for others.
"But thatâs not the reason it would be stupid.â She wondered if he understood what she was trying to say.
A light smile crossed his lips as he averted his gaze and nodded. Right again she was. She always had the habit of putting him back on the right path. No matter how far he strayed she was always there to rope him back in heading toward the sun. He joked, he laughed, he hardly took anything serious. He played the part of the fool just to hide how empty he really felt. But then there she was, sitting next to him. She probably didn't know it, but she was steadily filling that pit up inside him. He didn't feel quite so empty when she was around.
"Then it's a good thing I didn't," He said. It was hard trying to live for himself, but slowly he'd learn. There was nothing stopping him now. He'd proved to himself that if faced with the same choices of his past he'd choose a different one. He wasn't the same man who had ran away all those years. There had been hesitation this time, yes, but next time there would be none. He looked over the railing and saw the sun rising against a caramel colored sky and he could do nothing else but smile. He pointed toward the sun and then turned back to her, something more lighting in his eyes.
"It's not just another day. It's another day I'm alive."
The Chanter's Board has been updated. Trouble on the Water has been completed.