Do you believe that you can walk on water?

Ashetta had passed by the place a few times now. She didn’t feel any particular sort o reverence to the place, not the temple itself nor the shrine within. Why should she? The gods of her world were dead and forgotten long ago, and the gods she’d heard whisper of here were certainly not hers. One of the only reason the assassin frequented the temple and its stunning architecture was for the tavern below, run by her mother. That… and she hadn’t seen a building so beautiful since Northwind. It tugged at threads of memories, the few fond feelings from her life in that twisted kingdom. She padded through the utterly silent temple, illuminated by scattered candles and the silver light of the late night pouring through vaulted windows. Her claws clicking on marble echoed into the air, and the wolf had her golden eyes set upon her goal for the evening. The shrine kept catching her attention, her ear turning towards it whenever she trot by. She could never decide if the prickles up her spine were malcontent or her ever present need to know more. Gods, deities… she had encountered one, once, and she it hadn’t been pleasant. Ashe had endured what had felt like years of insanity for the wretched Grey Lady, and had decided upon coming face to face with the fickle and cruel being that she hated her. It had been nothing short of infuriating and terrifying in equal parts to be toyed with. She still supported the brand over the top of her hand from that. To say that she was weary of coming into contact with any more higher powers would have been an understatement. So naturally, that meant she needed to investigate and figure out just what the fuck she might find herself dealing with one day. The black wolf finally stopped before the shrine. Her pelt prickled and bristled over her neck, but she kept her ears forward and remained entirely still - silent. Her eyes were sharp and glimmering with the soft glow of candlelight as she gazed upon the display, some kind of offering or meeting place or bridge to whatever lay beyond the curtain of this world. Were the the gods of all worlds the same? Did the religions that faded from Northwind find themselves here? Did different gods preside over different worlds, like kings over kingdoms? She felt him approaching long before she heard his footsteps. She knew he had followed her, had likely known she’d woken and left the very moment it happened. Chased from sleep again, phantom gloved hands upon her skin, the laughs of two little girls giving way to the sound of crackling fire, and hot, sticky red that gloved her hands. She’d immediately shifted upon her violent awakening, and she hadn’t thought about it - she bounded into the night, four legs carrying her far from the open fractures of who she was. One ear swiveled back to listen to the footsteps of Alistair as he approached her and the shrine. Her body rippled, and then there was the small form of a raven-haired girl standing before the shrine, fire blue eyes gazing upwards with a chilling sort of calm. Something in her felt hollow. ’I killed my god,’ she thought defiantly to whatever power may be listening. Alistair would be able to hear her down the bond. If they truly were gods, she shouldn’t need to speak, should she? ’I devoured his heart and left his chest open for the flies. I am my own god now.’ If her husband approached, she didn’t look at him, but she greeted him wordlessly down their bond. She stared hard at the shrine, observing, trying to discern whatever gods were worshipped. ”I will fall to my knees for no one.” Her voice was quiet and steady in the empty night. Finally, she cast a glance at Alistair.. And her face softened. Was he angry with her, slipping away into the night again and again? She could never sleep. Her war had ended - she had won. Still, in her dreams she fought for survival. For sanity. ”Would you worship a god? Did you ever? My father used to talk about the forgotten gods, some religion our family followed. He didn’t know much of it.” ashetta it's live or die my way.

It was becoming a song and dance Alistair had memorized the steps to. He was a fool to believe revenge and a new world would bring anything different than the pattern she displayed in Northhaven. Marriage, and death of her master
..He assumed it to be enough to at least tempt Ashetta to pursue of a life where she could be happy...the closer he felt she would be to such a life, the further she seemed to bring herself from it.

He was a man of what appeared to be endless patience, but what most and possibly Ashetta seemed to forget was...He was a man. Human, with limits that appeared to be purposely tested without provocation.

She seemed to go out of her way to be away with him and for what reason he didn't know. Jasper was easy to decipher...from what he gathered it was more obligation than love that bound her to him, and held little else. He hoped things would be different for someone she genuinely loved...or so he hoped she did...and one who loved her in return.

Yet, nothing changed. His days were spent attempting to establish a forge, to establish a smithing area to build armaments...his nights he spent waking alone. In her absence he sensed the presence and apprehension of a other. Ashetta had a pentiant to think every interaction needed to be a war of attrition, and already she seemed to have pursue a figure with ferocity as any other interaction she felt a need to be the best at.

She seemed content placing her time pursuing others instead of taking in the one who stood by her through her best and worst moments.

So to say Alistair was in no mood to converse about theology was an understatement. He did not appear to discuss religion...that was the least of his concerns. "I believe in choices and the path we shape with those choices throughout our life. I do not place my worth or existence in the hands of entities I have never seen. It's an excuse some would use for the decisions they make, or an easy out for the guilt they feel...humanity and the life they live is through the choices they make."

Alistair too, kept his eyes forward, observing the temple. "I made my choices in life, some good. Some bad...choosing to marry you I felt was the best decision of my life. Choosing to love you, the easiest decision I ever made. I was born into filth and nothing. Not a name nor a memory to who I belonged to...but life presented me with a choice to remain as I was...worthless, nothing...or to become something more. Become a son to one who had none, a friend to one who needed it, and a husband to one who never felt love without cost or motive, without pain...accepting those choices I'd like to think, shaped the man I am.

I'm a good man Ashetta. I'm loyal, sincere...I would never lie or betray your trust...I'm a good man...patient...but you should not mistake patience for ignorance, and should not assume it is infinite. You have shed the skin of your master, literally consuming your fear...he's dead and buried...and you can't seem to accept peace as a choice. Instead you draw yourself away, with an insatiable desire to prove yourself superior...to what? To who? And at what price? The master is dead. You conquered the symbol of pain and fear that haunted you...yet you refuse to allow yourself to accept that.

You avoid peace, and by association, me...like a plague as if your new fear is to be happy." Alistair paused and shook his head. "I love you, that will never be in question...Instead perhaps you should ask yourself if that is what you want. Do you want to be loved? Or am I wasting both our times by foolishly pursuing what does not want to be caught. Explain to me where you go, and why you leave and I wake the fool every fucking time...because as much as I attempt to guess why would you draw yourself away, I can think of nothing."

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.

Alistair shook his head as he began to wander around the temple. "It's easy to utter those words. It's easier to hear them and feel it'll be ok. You hear them enough and it begins to lose meaning. Words are just that..." He would stop and turn to Ashetta with a shrug and half-lift of his arm. "...just words. Hollow as the paper they're written on. Don't tell me you're sorry, because the more I hear those words the less inclined I am to believe them, and am just hearing what you think I want to hear.

I'm not your master. I'm not your captor. You don't have to feel confined and obligated to please me. I'm your husband. I shouldn't have to ask, and you shouldn't feel obligated to mutter recycled words assuming it'll make things better. If you want this to work you have to make this work. I don't have to tell you I love you. My actions have always expressed such. I followed you to the very depths of your terrors and emerged, together.

You have all this magic, all this power, and you are convinced that makes you strong. Makes you powerful and fierce and you constantly go out of your way to prove that. It's an illusion. Because when left to your devices, you tremble. In the realm of battle you are unquestionably powerful...but if there is no wars, no battles, what is left for you? Nothing. At least, that is the path you have built for yourself. You keep pushing yourself away, you will be left with nothing, no one but your own guilt and anger.

I'm not asking to have you slave over a kitchen and have my meals ready for me, fetching my slippers and stripping your clothes at my command. I want my wife back, not a slave, that's not who you are.

I don't want your apologies, I don't want excuses or obligatory motions because it'll make me feel better. We have sailed through oceans or turmoil and shit and have come out the other end, alive...because we did it together.

Whatever it is you are running from, whatever it is that wakes you and drives you away...you will never get passed it alone. A strong as you think you are, some things are never meant to be fought alone. So don't stand there and tell me you're sorry and you'll do better...tell me it's ok to love you...tell me you love me...and tell me whatever it is, we will do this together.

There is little in this world I fear, none greater than waking up one night to silence. Not a thought or feeling...just empty, numb, nothingness and finding you alone and lifeless. I can't...and I won't accept that. I won't accept you doing...whatever it is you feel you have to do, alone.

Otherwise this means nothing...and has always meant nothing. It is empty and hollow like words without action." Alistair raised his hand to display their bonded rings.

A dark black smoke began to issue from the shrine. The candles which had previously been lit dimmed and burned a blood-red. Killed her god had she? No stupid girl. What you did wouldn't even make the gods here blink. With an angry growl, the ground shook slightly. Take your lover's quarrel elsewhere a sickly voice whispered. If the pair chose to stay, the smoke would increase, eventually causing them to black out.

Ashetta didn’t look up again as her husband began moving around the temple. She didn’t see him shrug, but she was listening. She had turned fractured eyes up to the shrine once more, and every word dropped like a stone into the deep, murky blackness that she was, sinking down and down and down into the bottomless dark. Nothing. Nothing. She shivered and felt something crumble away in her chest, but she kept listening. Stayed dutifully silent. Nothing. No one. She struggled to maintain steady breath now, and she could not, would not, turn to look at Alistair. She didn’t want him to see what was in her just then - the raw and wide open cracks and breaks and fissures in who she was. He wanted his wife back. He wanted her back, but gods, who the fuck was she? She had never been anything else but this, not once, not in over thirteen years. What else was there to her beyond this? ’Idiot girl,’ that cruel ghost hissed in her head, and her hands held to arms a bit tighter.  Gods what had she done? What was she supposed to do? How could she ask for help, for anyone, when she knew there was no help to be had? There was no saving whatever was left of her. ”Tell me it’s okay to love you.” But it fucking wasn’t! It never had been, she had told him that from the start, she told him. She nearly whirled on him and told him just that, nearly shouted into the empty temple that she didn’t deserve this. Gods, the only love she had ever known before she found her way to Northwind had been a lie, and it had been painful, and it had rendered her soul into the twisted thing it was now. She had deserved every moment of what she got before, how could anyone believe she deserved different? She had devoured the heart of the distant thing that created her. She had finally ended her torment that began when she was only six years old. Only she hadn’t. The torment lived in her, breathed in her, festered in her. It was vile and twisted and it hurt, and it was shameful. Shameful because she embraced it, took it, and she fucking ran with it. She couldn’t put that on anyone else, on Alistair. She wouldn’t. These were her consequences and wounds, the paltry penance for over a decade of making sacrifices in blood in exchange for her own life. How else was she supposed to do this other than alone? She’d had to adapt violently and quickly to know how to survive without the guild controlling her every breath.. And she’d done it poorly, but there was no other way. These were her consequences and scars. No one else’s. Ashetta’s lip trembled as she finally looked away from the shrine, turning to face Alistair as he raised his hand, displaying that precious ring. Heat flared in her chest suddenly, heat she didn’t want, but she couldn’t stop herself from the way her lip curled back. ”Don’t you fucking dare tell me that means nothing,” she snapped, her voice echoing into the ornate temple. Her eyes blazed with a current of fury she rode on to cover the hurt. She felt something like dread prickle up her spine, and she blamed it on the veins of brilliant blue flickering and flashing beneath her skin. She pretended not to notice the tears that gathered in her eyes, refused to let them fall. Nothing nothing nothing nothing. Her hands were shaking as they dropped to her sides, breath labored as she looked from the ring - her father’s ring - then back to his face. She loved him, gods, she fucking loved him. She felt something crack in her chest. ”I have given you everything I have left! Everything! You have access to my soul, Alistair, I don’t know what else to give you to show you that I love you! You want your wife back, but do you know who it is you’re asking for? You fell in love with a fucked up killer, and I -” Ashetta cut off abruptly when the candlelight dimmed, and then crimson light suffused them. She abandoned her anger, her hurt, her fear, and she whirled to face the shrine - she hadn’t noticed the smoke rolling from it until then. Her magic suddenly crackled with unease, and she began glancing about for an illusionist, or perhaps a conjurer, something.. But the world trembled with the growl that seemed to rumble from everywhere at once. The blood drained from her face, and the raven-haired girl took a step back. So at odds with that thunderous growl, that whisper snaked along her skin, prickled in her and deeply unsettled her. The smoke didn’t smell right, and it burned her eyes with it’s smell.. As she whirled back around to face Alistair, she shifted, and the she-wolf bounded a few paces to her husband before snapping her teeth at his shirt, tugging him after her. ’Get out of here,’ she pushed down their bond. She had to get him out. She was powerfully tempted to stay, to investigate… but she knew Alistair would never leave without her. She gave another snarp tug with her teeth at his shirt, tearing a small hole into it when her head started to spin. The voice, the presence.. They were bad. The smoke was bad news too, it seemed. Her golden eyes looked back at the shrine as she began trotting for the exit, at the blood-red light and smoke… ’Thank you,’ she thought to whatever god had so harshly answered her. ashetta it's live or die my way.

Alistair glanced around as the voice spoke out and huffed, shaking his head as he turned and walked past Ashetta as he exited. "Yes Ashetta...because the way I truly desire to communicate with you is through a jumble of sensations and thoughts...nevermind actually having you present to say more then five words, and even that is pushing it.

The rings aren't a pass for being absent. Perhaps that was enough for Jasper, but...gods be damned...I actually thought marrying you would mean actually being with you.

The rings aren't worthless, but they may as well be if it means actually not having you around...and you think I didn't know what you were when I met you? I washed Odette's blood off of you, burned your clothes, and lied to Roanna for you...So don't spin this like I'm some ignorant body merely here so you don't feel alone, like Jasper.

I can't help you if you aren't here, or actually accepting of it...but instead you draw yourself away, like the world is only a dark place for you...and everyone and everything else just wouldn't understand so you must confront the dark by yourself...You miss the fucking point of marriage and love and what it's supposed to mean.

You excuse your isolation of people as protecting them, from who you are and what you are...too stubborn to see they don't care. So you go, confront this new dark world on your own if you want...I can only be the fool so long before humiliation sinks in, because I have Zero clue what it is I am to you other than a crutch to lean on when convenient for you.

If I want to know where you are, I'll be sure to feel for you...it's the only acceptable way right?" Alistair replied, his tone remaining even as he looked over Ashetta. "Going to run away again? Or is that best done when my back is turned or sound asleep..."

”... A jumble of sensations and thoughts …” The wolf paused before the open doors of the temple and the night waiting beyond, wide golden eyes watching Alistair as he strode past her. A jumble of sensations and thoughts. Is that all it was, all he felt? The words wrapped around her throat and squeezed, but she made herself breathe through them, pull them in. He didn't mean it that way, she knew he didn't. He didn't. She told herself that three more times, but her throat was still painfully tight as padded after Alistair, leaving the shrine and whatever god they'd bothered behind. It didn't stop. As she trotted after him, the wolf'd head turned up again, her heart suddenly thundering through her. She had to swallow down the whine that wanted to work its way from her throat. In a flash she shifted again, and in her mind pulled herself further in.. down.. and down.. and down. Away from the flaring ache in her chest. It was a small woman that followed after Alistair now, her eyes following every movement. Then she visibly flinched back, pulling to a sharp halt outside the temple at the sound of that name. Her nose was filled with the scent of iron suddenly, and she near stumbled over the image of the lake of red spreading from behind an oak desk. ”I never..” her voice came out wavering and small. Jasper never had them, the rings.. only Alistair. ”You're the only one.” Ashe had made the deliberate decision not to share it with her ex fiance. Perhaps that was enough for Jasper.. Ashetta averted her eyes as he went on and bit the inside of her lip until it bled. What if she wasn't protecting them? She kept her startling blue eyes on the ground, her brows pulling together. What if it was herself she was protecting? A chill prickled up her spine at that, and gods he was so calm. She felt the surety, the conviction, the truth in every word. How could she speak up and deny any of it when he was right? She flicked her eyes up in time to see the way he looked her over, and she had to quickly look away again with the way her hands started to feel cold, head spinning. ”Going to run away again? Or is that best done when my back is turned or sound asleep…” She felt it too - the powerful impulse to run. Ashe's arms folded over her chest, holding herself tightly, holding herself together. She couldn't run. She couldn't, she couldn't, she told herself over and over. All he wanted was her to be there, to be around. After everything she’d done and put him through, was that so much to ask of her. She couldn't run.. and so she dove down and down and down, something dark and quiet calling her. He just wants you here. Ashe shuddered at the quiet that cloaked her head, but she looked back up at Alistair, pressing her lips together. Words would not do here. Her words, her thoughts, what was festering within, all of it.. it would not be enough here. ”I'm sorry,” she said quietly anyways. She glanced away again and to the unfamiliar smattering of stars above, unable to hold his gaze - out of character for the assassin that so stubbornly met every stare. Sorry wasn't enough. She knew it wasn't. She wouldn't run, couldn't run. Down, down, down… [ end thread ] ashetta it's live or die my way.