Do you believe that you can walk on water?

Ashe had been losing herself too much in mouthing off to gods that probably weren't listening - she didn't feel the quiet frustration, the anger, rippling from her husband until he stood beside her. Her chest tightened, but she didn't take her eyes off of the shrine, even as he began to speak. At first, it seemed he was content to discuss their mutual disdain for the higher powers that so many relinquished control to, but he began talking about choices. Decisions. And… she had to swallow past the lump forming in her throat as she listened in dutiful silence to Alistair as he went on. Gods. Gods. Yes, she knew.. she knew Alistair was a good man. Truly good, better than she could ever be, and.. what had she given him in return for the love he so tenderly gave her? Frustration, worry, hurt, anger. For nearly a year she had been a beast of paranoia and fury. It had been her final battle in a war she'd been fighting since she was five years old. Then she had ripped his heart out, swallowed it whole. ”He's dead and buried...and you can't seem to accept peace as a choice,” he'd said. It was over. So why couldn't she stop fighting? Why had the night terrors gotten worse and not better? What was wrong with her? She was still staring at the shrine, and her heart was beginning to beat faster, the candleflames flickering in patterns too regular to be anything natural. She flexed her hands against the tremble that was starting in her bones, resisting the impulse to slip back into her furs, to run and run and run and run until her legs just couldn’t move anymore. She thought she had spent her harsh energy in her run from their home to the temple, approaching this shrine. She was wrong. Five hells, she could feel her magic trembling as Alistair continued, and she was betrayed by her own body, her desire to shift showing with the ring of gold around the center of her eyes. Conquered the symbol of fear and pain. Goosebumps rippled down her moon-pale skin, flashes of brilliant veins of blue echoing the response to those words. Finally, Ashe had to avert her eyes from the shine, casting her gaze to the floor. A symbol. Something about that stuck sharply in her, and she tucked it away to review later. This wasn’t about her Master, about what she did to him.. Was it? No, this was about her, her and the way she could never seem to stop fucking up. ”Do you want to be loved? Or am I wasting both our times by foolishly pursuing what does not want to be caught?” Everything within her froze all at once. Silence settled in her head. Heavy, thick, cold silence. Her heart stuttered, and she couldn’t seem to make herself look at him. ”Explain to me where you go, and why you leave and I wake the fool every fucking time.” How could she? How the fuck could she when she couldn’t explain it, when she didn’t understand it? Why couldn’t she just be better? He wanted her home, he wanted her with him and to settle into his arms and gods she wanted it, she craved it… Ashetta had to press her lips together to stop their tremble. Her chest ached with that want, and she fucking hated herself for it. She couldn’t have that, couldn’t be that, could she? She had been trying, gods, she’d been trying so hard.. And then the night terrors intensified and she found herself desperately seeking anything other than the quiet that came with having no enemy to fight. Allowed all this time.. She was going to go mad with the space her thoughts had to wander now. Maybe she’d already gone mad. Ashe’s mouth was dry when she finally made herself look up at Alistair, and she didn’t try to hide it: the way her eyes were fractured, how cold and feeble that fire was getting. Her chest squeezed painfully when she looked at him - inky black curls and stars so deep and dark that they were a starless night sky. She shouldn’t have let him love her, but gods, she was just so fucking selfish that she let him in. How long before the rest of her family caught on to the sharp and harsh edges that made up who she was? Alistair was bleeding in trying to love her, in holding onto the mass of broken pieces she had tried so hard to put back together herself. She’d done a piss-poor job. And he didn’t, couldn’t understand. She didn’t want him to, if he understood then that would mean he knew the hell she lived, the demon she was. He was good and true and honest, and had fought so hard for who he was. Ashetta…. Pathetic. Coward. Idiot girl. ”I’m sorry,” she whispered. It repeated over and over and over again in her head. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Holding his gaze was hard, and she flicked her eyes back to the shrine, back to the gods that would never care, never listen. ”I don’t… I can’t.. I can’t..” She had to pause and take a slow breath, and Ashetta crossed her arms and hugged herself, scarred hands rubbing over her arms. She was suddenly cold. She wanted to lean into him, to breathe him in. He smelled so much like fire and coal now. He was working so hard to set up that forge, to build a real life in this forsaken place, and just wanted to wake up in the night with his wife still by side. Instead she was throwing herself from bed. Empting her stomach before she ran. Instead she was chasing after a hooded stranger and training in ways she hadn’t had the chance to since the Guild. She was sniffing around the ruins, keeping an eye on the spire, skirting closer and closer to that border every day. Sleep had become her enemy, peace didn’t exist, but she had eaten the heart of the man who twisted her - why couldn’t she be the wife Alistair longed for? He loved her, she knew he loved her, she never doubted that for a moment… He deserved so much better, and she couldn’t say that to him, not with the way he’d reacted to that the last time she said it. ”I can’t ever just be,” she finally said quietly. She turned her eyes up to the shrine. Should she pray for salvation? For absolution? She didn’t know the words to those kinds of prayers. ”I don’t know why I can’t stop, Alistair, I can’t fucking stop... “ She held herself tighter, shoulders caving inwards. She remembered that night terror she pulled him into. When it had ended with her knife to his throat. Ashetta shut her eyes, and finally said a silent prayer. ’I have to be stronger than this. Make this stop. Please.’ She expected nothing from the gods. ”I have to keep going, I have to keep moving, I can’t.. I can’t.” And I can’t drag you down with me. Won’t. Would she ever be what he so passionately believed she could be? She wanted to, wanted to be better, be stronger. ”Do you want to be loved?” She didn’t know how to answer that. She wasn’t sure she would ever be okay with the love she was so wrongly given. From Devrum, from Alistair, from Vervain, from Ronin… she was not something meant to be loved, but something meant to be hated and feared and used. She loved her family desperately, she would endure the worst of the hells to keep them safe. Especially Alistair. She would keep every horror and darkness in the world from him if she could. But to be loved… she thought she could do it. She had finally started to go to her friends, to her parents, to truly let people in again. Her efforts weren’t enough. Still she found herself blindly running into the night, taking with her the sick and wretched parts of herself that she guarded viciously… even from her own husband who she had granted access to her very soul. He felt her, her every impulse and want and desire and fear and hate unless she slammed up her mental walls to block it. And he couldn’t understand. She couldn’t understand, so of course he couldn’t. There wasn’t a soul around that could truly fathom this - her father was the closest she had to a kindred spirit. ”I’ll do better,” she quietly promised as she opened her eyes again. She had promised him that once, got better for a few months... but now.. now she needed to move at night, to be anywhere but a quiet and warm place. Would she ever fit into a life like that, the one she got so many tastes of, the life that Alistair presented at her feet as the most precious, and gods, it was truly precious.”I’m sorry.” ashetta it's live or die my way.