We drink to forget (Ashe)

a s h e "So.....sold out your entire guild for what? To play house with that husband of yours in Northhaven? Must have been quite the adjustment from slitting throats in the dark to delivering love letters to prattling nobles." Ashe looked sharply away from Kaladin at that, clenching her jaw as she locked sharp eyes on the crackling fire before her. If she had been hungry before, she wasn’t any longer. The wolf had bolstered her appetite since she’d gone through the ceremony, but even that could not claw through the aching nausea that rose when she thought of trying to eat like this. She shook her head faintly as he went on. She couldn’t be anything she wanted, new world or not. She was what she was, and that was that, no matter what profession she picked. Monster. Murderer. Broken, twisted thing. She didn’t speak, didn’t want to yet, and she had asked Kal to explain… so she listened. She couldn’t help but be shocked at how easily she related to the way the former royal guard talked. She supposed it shouldn’t have surprised her - he had been a soldier before he had been Princess Violet’s guard, no matter how naive and good-hearted he seemed. He had bathed in blood, every Storm Guard that had set foot on those battlefields and returned home after knew what it was like to cut down soul after soul for someone else’s war. Battlefields were vastly different from the kind of killing Ashe did for more than half of her life - but killing was killing. They had chosen their side and I had chosen mine. She supposed that was the difference there. The vast majority of her targets never even knew there was something to fight, something to try and survive against by the time she was slipping her blade into their bodies. But he was right. It was the ones that were never supposed to be hurt that wounded the deepest. She looked up sharply as he went on, her eyes locking on him as he talked about… children. Children? Since when did Kaladin have children? She didn’t even know he’d been seeing anyone. She watched him, and she felt something sick settle in her stomach at the way he spoke, her heart picking up its pace considerably. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard the screaming wails of an infant. She heard it cut off sharply. She felt very cold as she watched the silent tears slip down his cheeks, and she looked away sharply. Back to the flames. You have no children, she told herself, but the thought was painful. You have no children, you never had children, and you never will have children. She drilled it into her head as the bottle was tossed back at her, and it was with almost desperation that she statched it up and opened it, tipping it back until her eyes and nose and throat burned all at once. She thunked it back down between them with fire pulsing in her veins, the campfire before them emulating her wild heart as it adjusted to the alcohol rushing through it. She held her breath as it did it's work glaring harshly at the fire. Your turn. Fucking… motherfucking hells, she had said she’d tell him, didn’t she? The raven haired girl pursed her lips and let out a long, heavy breath. ”I’m out here because I’m a piece of shit that breaks everything she touches,” she said bitterly, and far less… eloquently than Kaladin. ”I’ve lost nine people I love in the last three years, and their blood is on my hands. I fought my war. I ended my war.” She glanced at Kaladin then without a smile, tapping her finger to her temple. ”But it’s still raging up here, yeah? All fucking shit I did, what they did to me, what I became, what my Master made me - all still up there.” She turned her gaze back to the fire, her eyes fractured. ”Sorry you lost your kids,” she murmured quietly, and her brow furrowed when she swore she could vividly feel the tiny fingers of a newborn around her finger. Her throat tightened, and she grit her teeth against the threat of tears. ”What were their names?”