We drink to forget (Ashe)

The night was almost completely silent, the only sound interrupting the stillness of the world was the crackling of a small campfire out in the woods. There was no snow or ice yet forming around the area yet the icy fingers of winters already had deemed it time to sink its claws into the land, saturating it with chilling winds. A mans breath puffed out in white clouds near the fire, forming into strange shapes as it danced up and away into the world.

No other life seemed to stir around the man and his campfire. No hooting of owls, nor the chilling cries of wolves. No eyes peeked out from the bushes, enticed by the scent of cooking hare, fat dripping into greedy flames. It was as if a cone had erected itself around the lone stranger and his campfire and refused to allow anything else within it. This seemed to sit with the stranger just fine, the urge for human contact came far and few between for him these days and he found that he enjoyed the solitude much more then he did the hustle and bustle of a group of settlers trying to carve a small portion of this strange new place to call their own.

Skin cracked and broke in a hiss and the man looked over at his evening meal, it would be ready shortly. He reached for a wine skin that sat at his side and he took a long hard swig from it. He had found wild grapes growing in the forests here, they were extremely bitter, poor quality for wine grapes, yet they fermented and got you drunk all the same. He grimaced as the alcohol ran down his throat, forcing the poor quality alcohol down into his stomach. Shifting himself into a kneeling position he sliced off a portion from one of the rabbits and skewered it onto the end of one of his daggers. Sitting back down he chewed on the gamy meat appreciatively while he enjoyed the nights silence.

That enjoyment only seemed to last for a few moments unfortunately, for one moment he was sitting alone in those woods and then in the next he blinked and there sat a man across from him. Two children no older then 9 sat on the mans lap. The man was a mirror image of what the stranger would look like in 20 to 30 years from now. Same strong chin, same broad shoulders, same aristocratic posture. There were of course differences to be sure, the elder man's dark hair was flecked heavily with grey. Those stern eyes held two icy blue eyes, while the stranger only was given one, the other shone bright green like an emerald held up to a light. The stranger, while several decades younger, was also in the strictest sense of the word a cripple. His right arm had been taken from the elbow and in its place stood a magically forged one, steel twinkling in the firelight.

Despite all of these differences one thing stood out to separate the two men the most. The stranger slouched, eyes downcast, a deep pain hidden within them. While alone he seemed to make himself as small as possible as if he was trying to avoid attention. Most likely to avoid these phantoms. The man sitting across from him was straight backed, nose tiled upwards with a disproving sneer splashed across his face. This was a man who was bred to be nobility, and the worst kind of it, The arrogant kind. I told you that you'd never amount to anything didn't I? I sent you off to that silly war of ours to die, so that you would be out my hair and no longer a drain on my coffers. Yet despite my wishes you managed to survive, even worse you thought that you would be good enough for the princess? Fucking some mongrel shapechanger was to be expected, you never did seem to have any sense of dignity. Still, to think that you could ever be with the princess is preposterous. Then to top it all off you went allowed to get the princess and my grandchildren killed. You had one job and that was to protect them with your life and you managed to screw that up as well.

At the mention of children the two on the mans lap turned to look at the stranger. The boy had the same dark hair that the stranger had, same jaw line, though his was less defined due to his youth. The girl next to him already had a mane of fiery red hair, with freckles dotting across the bridge of her nose. Both turned to look at the stranger and where eyes should have been sat dark pits as if they had been burned away, black spiderwebs trailing away from the center across their faces. They sat their accusingly at the younger man, silently asking him why he hadn't been there to save them, to protect them like a father should. Utterly useless, couldn't even die properly the older man said again, staring disaprovingly at the stranger. "I'm sorry" he whispered, bringing up his knees to his chest as those phantom stares bore down into him, eating away at what little soul and sanity he had managed to keep.

The snap of a tree branch sounded off like an explosion and the stranger was instantly on his feet, GodEater spinning quietly next to him as he searched the treeline for the noise. The phantoms disappeared as suddenly as they arrived, all that was left was the stranger, every muscle poised for an unseen attack.

The wolf had been drawn in by the scent of cooking meat. It had been odd - she wasn’t starving, she had just caught and crunched down a small rabbit that morning.. but when had she last had a cooked meal? The days were bleeding together, consumed by silence. Absolute silence. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she’d come out here, how many days since she had sat silently against that tree he left her at. She’d tucked those rings into a pocket and shifted, run into the barren woodlands.. and she hadn’t come back out but for the rarest of occasions. Once had been to steal some of the supplies she needed to craft something of a pet project of hers: leather and buckles and the like, and soon enough she had something that resembled saddlebags for the wolf. She’d crafted it quickly and crudely, her hands shaking by the end with how desperately she wanted to be back in her furs. The second time she finally ventured from the woods had been bright and early in the morning - early enough that people were leaving their homes for the day. The fruits of that trip was stored safely in one of those bags now, dark liquid sloshing in a glass bottle. Whoever she’d stolen it from wouldn’t miss it. Day-to-day was hardly bearable sober. Silence. Silence, silence, absolute crushing silence. She had forgotten how to live without the bond, had taken that constant, steady presence for granted. She didn’t want to think about the isolation, the deep sense of nothing within. The darkness was a rising tidal wave, roaring and hungry, and it was the burn of liquid fire in her throat that kept it from cresting and crashing over her. She wasn’t so drunk that she couldn’t walk, no, not like when she’d swiped that moonshine from Dev’s farmhouse. For a moment she remembered being swung against a wall, lips fitting to hers as that moonshine drifted between her and Al- She cut off that thought as the wolf picked her way through the underbrush, following her nose. No, it wasn’t like that night. She was functioning. She was moving. She wasn’t exactly the most alert, but she could handle herself fine.. and she was numb. Numb was good. Numb was better than the sharp ache of what she’d done, how deeply she had broken her own life. It was better than thinking about the exhaustion, about why she was exhausted. She couldn’t sleep - wouldn’t. Not when those nightly horrors woke her, launched her to her feet and forced her to empty her stomach. And then she’d run, and run, and run until her legs gave out because she would not go to anyone with this. She wouldn’t - couldn’t - speak of what was in her head… and there was no one in her head anymore to hear her, no one to answer or understand. What else was there to do? Drink. She could drink, and she could hunt when she felt like it, and she could run. And.. apparently she could track down the smell of cooking food until she found someone she hadn’t seen or spoken to in a long while. The wolf remained crouched in the shadows, golden eyes flashing to the fire and the food that roasted over it and then back to Kaladin. She watched him jump to his feet at the sound of a branch breaking, watched him brandish his weapon. He had changed since she last saw him. What had happened to the bright-eyed, eager royal guard she had fought alongside? They’d taken down the great stone cat together, had fought fires and saved people from explosions… she supposed she wasn’t the same as she had been back then either. She thought about turning around and leaving. She hadn’t spoken to a single soul in… however long she had been out here. She hadn’t wanted to. Facing who and what she was, how she had driven away the one she had married and shared her very soul with… drinking was better. Running was better. Easier. But something in the way Kaladin regarded the world made her pause. And he had food. Food might have been a factor. Ashe stepped into the firelight, the large black wolf keeping her head low as she considered him. It should be obvious that she was no wild wolf, with her harness bags strapped across her chest and around her ribs. Her golden eyes flashed as she considered Kaladin for a long moment, and then she shifted. In a smooth movement, there was a very small, raven-haired young woman standing in place of the wolf, dressed in head-to-toe black. Her scarred hands were unhooking the straps of that harness that now looped around her shoulders and over her torso, but fire-blue eyes never left the man before her. She still didn’t speak, but she slowly approached as she swung those harness bags around, reaching within them to withdraw that glass bottle that was already a third empty. The assassin glanced him over, then sat down on the other side of the fire, thunking the bottle down between where she sat and he stood. ”This stuff is better,” is all she said. Kaladin ashetta it's live or die my way.

There certainly was something different about the large black wolf as it trotted into the ring of light offered by the fire. Multi-colored eyes trailed after the animal, with its collection of straps and satchels, and the stranger gripped the hilt of GodEater more firmly, with a simple flick of his wrist the ball and chain would shoot out at its target, a concussive blast emanating from it once it struck something solid.

Yet before Kaladin could decide on whether or not to attack the strange beast it shifted, a sight Kaladin had been quite familiar with at one point in his life. What was once was black fur and dripping fangs became a petite but sturdy young woman, bright blue eyes always flashing dangerously at whomever they landed upon. The man took pause, he hadn't seen this particular face in a very long time, since before the entirety of his life had come to ruin.

There was something different about the woman this time though. She had always had a dangerous aura around her, coiled up tight and ready to explode at the right moment. Still...there had also been a hint a childish mischief in her as well, she'd just as likely kill you as she would drink and sing rowdy sailor songs with you in a tavern. That personality quirk seemed to have evaporated from the woman now staring at him from across his campfire. She tossed a glass bottle between them and Kal eyed it suspiciously. Despite having gone through quite a bit with Ashe (Burning buildings and stone monstrosities to name a few) Kaladin had shared few words with the raven haired young woman. He certainly hadn't been aware that she was a shapechanger. They were acquaintances at best and he had heard rumors about her past.

"Taste is irrelevant, im trying to get shit faced not have a tea party." he said gruffly as he knelt by the bottle and picked it up. He pulled the stopper out from it and sniffed at the contents. Not sure why I bother seeing if its poisoned, could care less if I die. He thought before throwing his head back and letting the dark liquid burn its way down his throat. He drained a third of it in one swallow and then tossed it back at the young woman's feet, warmth spreading in his belly as the liquor began to do its work. "Didn't think you had the misfortune of getting dragged into this fresh hell too." He hadn't seen Ashe the few times he had wondered near that pile of hovels the people here called a settlement, not that he had been looking for her in particular. "You always been a wolf?" he asked her bringing up her transformation a few moments earlier.

”Never said anything about taste,” Ashe replied as she watched him sniff the bottle. He was quite… different from the last time she had seen him. When had that been? In passing somewhere around Northaven, perhaps when he was guarding the princess. The last time she had spoken to him… that had been during the explosions, hadn’t it? When she had called to aid, told him to direct the Guard and get as much of the fire under control as they could while she had dove into those destroyed buildings, searching for survivors. And before that? She nearly shuddered at the memory of that colossal stone beast, the one she had nearly died defeating. Kaladin had become a battle buddy of sorts, back when she had that kind of fire in her. It seemed he had lost that fire too. Ashe frowned as he drained a third of the bottle in one go, narrowing her eyes. Served her right for handing off her booze, she supposed. Approaching anyone. At the least, Kaladin didn’t seem to expect or want pleasant company. As he tossed the bottle back at her, she smoothly caught it with a single hand before it could hit the ground, her eyes never leaving the ex-royal guard. She wondered briefly why she stopped to speak to him, why she hadn’t continued on her not-so-merry way to find the next den to curl up in and keep warm. Maybe it was the need for a familiar face that hadn’t had the misfortune of truly being apart of her life, someone who seemed as miserable as her without it being her fault. Ashe took a long pull from the bottle, teeth clenching as she cringed against the burn in her throat and nose. Whatever the shit was - brandy maybe? - it was strong enough to make her eyes nearly water. The effect was rapid, tingling heat spreading from her chest and into the tips of her fingers. Never did take much for the small woman. She glanced at the man beside her, assessing him and his gruff nature carefully. She had never known him well, not enough to know his ticks and quirks, but there had always been a naive and kind sort of feeling she got from him. She didn’t get that feeling anymore. ”I’ve been staying out of sight in this fresh hell hole,” she answered. She hadn’t been here long before her husband left her. Before she had broken them apart with running away in the wake of night terrors. Her jaw clenched as she took another long drink, and it burned less this time as she handed the bottle back towards the man. ”And no. I haven’t.” She didn’t elaborate, didn’t touch on the fact that she’d very illegally become one back in Northaven. Ashe turned fractured eyes to the crackling fire, the meat that cooked above it. ”The fuck happened to you, Kaladin?” Ashe asked, glancing at him briefly before staring back into the flames. ashetta it's live or die my way.

Kal nodded at the young woman as she explained. He could understand not really wanting to be seen. For the most part he had kept to the outskirts of the settlement, avoiding interaction with the new settlers as they attempted to carve out civilization from yet another strange new world. The limited interactions he had had with others were unique circumstances, and ironically they all had been with women...it seemed that the hell spawn that called themselves deities in this land had a sense of humor.

"Don't remember hearing about any approval forms being signed to make any new changers Ashe..." he shrugged his shoulders and carved off another strip of hare meat. "Good thing we're not in Northhaven anymore, I might have to arrest you otherwise." In truth he couldnt care less about what she did or didn't do with her body, he found it difficult to give a damn about himself much less anyone else.

He noticed her eyeing the cooking meat over the fire and snorted. "Just cuz you bat those pretty blues at me doesn't mean I'm going to get up and serve you. This isn't a tavern and I'm not a serving wench, you hungry get up and grab it yourself." He ripped off a piece of the meat skewered in his knife and chewed silently, not caring if she went and grabbed the food or not.

At her next question he gave a dark chuckle. "What's a matter? Don't like what you see?" The fact that she noticed a difference in him at all spoke to her attention to detail. "Could say the same thing about you? Usually there's more hellfire in those eyes of yours. What, someone kick your puppy?" He said sneering. Even as he snapped at her he felt guilty for it, Ashe wasn't at fault for the shit he'd gone through. No one here was and yet he couldn't help but try and push everyone away, for there safety and what was left of his sanity.

Ashe raised her brows at Kaladin, entirely unimpressed as she blinked dully at him. ”I'm sure you could have tried to arrest me,” she replied smoothly. Her times of arrest in Northaven had been on her terms, holding her hands out for those stupid fucking magic suppressing shackles the Storm Guard carried. And before that? When she had turned herself in to the king himself. No one arrested the Assassin in Blue against her will. Even so, Kaladin didn't exactly have an conviction in his words as he worked on his food. Emptiness clawed at her belly in the same instant nausea did - eating had been quite the struggle as of late. As he gruffly told her to get the damn food if she wanted it, she rolled her gaze from him and to the roasting hare, the fire hissing as grease dripped down. She frowned, and instead of grabbing for food she found herself grabbing for the liquor again, throwing back a long couple of gulps that burned deeply in her chest. She bared her teeth with a hiss as she put the bottle back down between them, not taking her eyes off of the fire. She had to admit, it was strange to be sharing a drink with a not-so-familiar-but-familiar face. She doubted she would have ever done it in Northaven, though more than once she had wanted to seek out the royal guard, if not for any reason other than the fact that she felt a particular sort of attachment for the handful of people she'd fought side by side with. Ashe glanced sharply up at his sneer, and she nearly snarled at him… but she just looked at him for a long and silent moment before flicking fire blue eyes back to the crackling blaze before them. Her hands were picking at a hole that had started forming in the knee of her pants. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was the comfort of his emotional distance from her but.. ”I’m the Assassin in Blue,” Ashe said quietly. The words hung in the air as heavy as they felt. He would have heard of her as a guard and as close as he was to the royal family. She had been the most infamous assassin Northwind had ever known, public enemy to the crown. She reached out for the bottle again, whether he'd had another drink yet or not, and took her longest drink from it yet. They were down to half of the large bottle now, and her limbs were starting to feel light. She thunked it down between them again and glanced at Kaladin from the corner of her eye. ”So sure, Kal, someone kicked my fucking puppy.” She returned her gaze to the flames, pulling her knees up to wrap her arms around her legs. ashetta it's live or die my way.

A humorless chuckle escaped his lips at her challenge, he had seen Ashe fight during the assault of Northhaven. The small raven haired girl was no slouch, especially not with those magic powers of hers. Still, Kaladin was no slouch when it came to a fight either. He had been a soldier during the war, had killed men twice the size of the woman before him. Plus they didn't just make anyone a royal....

He could feel himself getting pulled away from where he sat before he had finished the thought. Physically he was still there, watching the dancing of the flames against the dark backdrop. Yet his eyes had suddenly gotten that look in them, wide eyed and glazed over. The man wasn't there anymore, not really anyway.

He saw a long dining hall, table buckling under the trays and platters of food on its surface. Violet sat prim and perfect at one end. Three young children were sitting at the table with her and she was laughing with them, radiant smile and golden tresses bouncing as her chest heaved. Kaladin knew that these had all been her children and yet the young boy that sat across from the princess seemed to glow especially bright. Kaladin had spent very little time with his son and only when he was an infant yet he knew the dark haired boy giggling up as his mother made silly faces at them was his own. Kaladin attempted to join them, he ran down the length of the table yelling their names yet no matter how hard he ran, no matter the pain as he forced another breath full of air down his lungs, was he able to make it to them. It was as if the table grew in length to keep him away. When he couldn't run any faster he dropped to his knees, chest heaving. Every muscle in his legs were ablaze with pain yet no sooner had he stopped did he force himself back up to begin running again. When he fell the second time he did not get up, instead he dragged himself across the ground, inch by agonizing inch. He cried himself hoarse, attempting to somehow reach them and yet they were oblivious to his presence. When he could move no more the scene shifted.

He was back on his feet, the pain and blood from a thousand cuts and scratches gone. He was looking out a window into a meadow. The sun was shinning brightly and he heard the songs of a hundred different birds, all unique yet somehow all in harmony with one another. Two figures danced in the meadow. The taller one dressed in a white dress, made of simple cotton, a crown a wildflowers gracing the wildfire of her hair. She was barefoot, and from her voice came the sweetest sound of them all, her song pure and light and full of hope. The smaller girl could have passed off as a twin, she wore a similar cotton dress and on her mane of red hair sat a smaller crown of flowers. Freckles dotted across the bridge of her nose. Cailain and Kala were all smiles as mother sang while daughter mimicked. Tears began to well in Kaladin's eyes as he banged against the glass that seemed to separate them. Yet it would not break, his remaining human hand becoming bloody and broken against the unyielding wall.

It was only the voice of Ashe that brought him back to reality, at one moment his own blood was splattering against his face as he attempted to break through the glass, the next he was back in the dark forest, fire crackling and the girl with the one piercing blue eyes sat across from him, legs curled up in front of him in probably the most vulnerable position he had ever seen her in. He coughed in a poor attempt at hiding his momentary disassociation with reality. What was it that she had said? Something about an Assassin? It took a moment to process the information, he tried not to remember much anymore, it was too painful and so it took him awhile to match previous knowledge with the new information she had just given him. "I'm sorry, did you just say you were the fucking Assassin in Blue?" he asked with a derisive snort. Then, pieces started to fall into place. Reports on what the infamous killer of Northwind might have looked like, accounts on how they fought. Kaladin had always assumed it to be a man, his unintended bias manifesting. "Holy shit...you're the fucking Assassin in Blue. All this time, one of the most notorious murderers in all of Northwind's history was a pretty little dark haired commoner." Even the gruff persona Kal had adopted since his families deaths couldn't help but be a little impressed at the revelation. "Why bother telling me?" he asked, watching her stare into the flames. "And if you were the Assassin then you didn't just become her. So that still doesn't explain why you look like shit, slumming it out in the woods like me."

a s h e She wasn’t sure what she had expected from Kaladin with her admission. Perhaps disbelief that the tiny little messenger girl from Northaven with a penchant for violence was, in fact, the Assassin in Blue. Maybe she expected hatred. He had been a royal guard, charged with protecting the royal family from threats like her. One of the most notorious murderers in all of Northwind’s history. She glanced up from the flames and quirked a brow at him with a small, half smile. There was a time when a comment like that would have her grinning, leave a thrill rippling down her back - now there was perhaps only a ghost of that. Ashe pursed her lips tilted her head back to the fire, and some small part of her reached for those flames, and inner magic she hadn’t spoken to in some time. It had been her most vicious magic back in Northaven - her fire. Her blood was sparks and lightning now, everything in her a vicious storm. Even still, some of that fire leaned towards her, as if an old friend reaching out. She didn’t reach back. ”No, I didn’t just become her,” Ashe echoed, shaking her head. ”I’ve been an assassin since I was seven, started my training two years before that.” The word seemed to tilt, and she cast a glare at the former royal guard with a near pout; it was halfhearted and felt hollow. She knew he was right. She was sure she did look like shit, the wolf having slept in the woods for weeks now. Didn’t mean she didn’t want to bite him for pointing it out. ”You didn’t hear about the Assassin in Blue selling out the entirety of Northwind’s Guild of Assassins?” She made a tsking sound as she lurched forward and folded her legs beneath her, bracing her elbows against her knees as she looked at Kaladin. ”Your King granted me clemency and sanctuary in Northaven.” She stared at him for another long moment before she cast her eyes away. She had spent weeks in the castle dungeons, never once tried to escape. Hadn’t wanted to. She had expected a public execution, not freedom. ”Sanctuary,” she spat bitterly. ”More like a fish in a fucking barrel.” It had taken all of about two months of being in Northaven for Master to track her down and begin her torment anew, and she’d had nowhere to run. Ashe sighed heavily, still staring into the flames. Why did she bother telling him? What did it matter? ”I told you because it’s meaningless now,” she finally said quietly. ”The Assassin in Blue is fucking meaningless.” Now that her Master was dead, now that she’d finally stood against him alone and survived... she wasn’t supposed to survive it. She had never planned to make it this far, to live this long. She should have been dead a thousand times over, deserved to be dead. Ashe turned her head to look at Kaladin again, and she smirked ruefully. ”You tell me what you’re doing out here looking like shit and slumming it in the woods, and maybe I’ll tell you why I am.”

He stoked the fire with a thick branch he had come across early, sparks flying as the coals were push around. "I was a soldier before I was assigned to guarding the Hawthornes. I was on the front lines in Northwind, news was scarce from the capital those years before I portal'd into the settlement." To be fair there hadn't really been any reliable news source out there where the fighting had been most fierce. Sure soldiers gossiped around the campfires like fishwives but Kal learned early on to take anything a soldier said with a grain of salt. The fact that he hadn't really been privvy to Ashe's betrayal of her former guild wasn't as surprising as she might think.

"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." On the one hand Kaladin could care less about her selling out the guild. He hadn't known any of their members besides Ashe and he was sure that the group had done plenty of harm while they were active. Yet at the same time the lack of loyalty struck a nerve in Kaladin, a nerve that wanted to chastise the woman. The two opposing thoughts caused his tone to come out in a strange half attempt at being stern with her, as if his mind told him to be mad at her yet his heart wasn't really in it.

"It's all meaningless Ashe, every last fucking bit of it. But as they say, we're in a brand new world. Full of new opportunities and wonder." he waved his hands in mock excitement. "Now you could go back to being a messenger, or be a baker, or a whore....whatever you'd like to be."

She redirected his question back at him and Kal shrugged, shrinking back into himself a bit. " I've come to realize I don't care much for being around people much anymore. It's much more agreeable for everyone if I made myself scarce as possible....and much safer as well." Of course he blamed himself for those deaths. Had he been stronger he could have killed the goddess that had snatched up and taken Violet away. Had he been smarter or faster he could have found a way to bring Cailain and Kala to this fucked up new world, hell he would have even brought that fucker Ryker with them if it mean't that one of the women he loved would have been alright. He would have moved the earth to get to watch his daughter grow up. "You ever see the people that you'd killed Ashe?" he said after awhile. "Back in the war I never saw them, never thought of the countless faceless soldiers I had gutted or dismembered on those battlefields. It was easy then, easy to tell myself that they didn't matter. They had chosen their side and I had chosen mine." his voice cracked for but the tiniest moment before he continued. "These new faces though, These faces won't go away. I see them when I sleep, I see them when I'm awake. When I eat, when I take a shit. I...I just can't seem to get them to leave me alone. I've watched them die countless times in countless different ways. Sightless eyes stare accusingly at me, their voices like nails raking against my brain. Asking me why I wasn't there, why I didn't protect them." As he spoke he began to visibly shake, hands balled into fists while blood began to trickle from his one remaining human palm. "Do you know what its like to stare at your dead children and try to explain to them why you killed them? Why there wasn't anything you could have done to save them? Knowing in the back of your mind that you aren't fucking talking to anyone?" Tears had finally begun to fall from Kaladin's cheeks. He didn't sob, his words came out crisp and clear for the most part, yet the tears flowed freely from his eyes. He walked over to where she had tossed the bottle and took another heavy swig before tossing it back to her. "Your turn"

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?”