#but when I found out that I accidentally made Ash's name equate to what Fen'Harel's name was SUPPOSED TO MEAN

[scurvgirl]

Ash

Ashokara - Qunlat, noun; seeker of rebellion

All aboard the pain train. Warning for character death (lots) and suicidal thoughts.

Melarue belongs to @justanartsysideblog

Aili belongs to @lillotte17

Uthvir belongs to @feynites as well as taken lots of references from the first chapter of Looking Glass <3

Inquisitor!Kass Bad Ending, not canon

“I was a fool.”

“That is the kindest word for what you are,” she snarls, spear aimed high.

He is bloody and beaten, almost as much as she is. And while all sense of purpose has left him in a fit of existential anguish at having ruined everything, she is fresh and angry. Bloodied and burning. Her armor is tattered and old, parts of it scrapped from the people the dearest to her.

All gone. They’re all…gone.

Because of him.

She remembers when he was taller than she was, when she had looked up to him and he had sat down next to her. He taught her. Befriended her mother.

She angles the tip of the spear under his chin and his eyes fall closed.

“You are strong, Ashokara. Your mother is –

She angles the tip to cut him, he stops speaking and she shakes.

“You don’t get to talk about her, Fen’Harel.” She spits his name, his title, the curse dripping from her teeth like the blood as she watched her mother die.

He flinches at the name, still.

“No! There is nowhere left to run from who you are, what you have done. You killed them, destroyed the world. You don’t get solace, you don’t get peace, or forgiveness.”

“I know.”

She shakes, blinking through the tears, “Shut up!” He lies, always lies. He lied to her mother when he came and said he was there to help. He lied when he bent down and smiled at her. All lies when he said he wanted to speak her nanae. He had lied when he said he didn’t want to hurt what remained of her family.

Lies.

Her nanae may have lied to live, but they did not live their life in constant denial of who they were, of what they were doing. He had refused to see her world as more than a husk of what had been. He did not see her as a person, only now does he see her true strength because she has forced him.

She did not defeat him. He killed himself, destroyed the world and everything good she had ever known. Any person she has ever loved, gone.

And now here she stands, doomed to death, blessed to hopefully see her mama again. Her nanae. Uthvir. Aili. So many others that had fallen, telling her to run, to keep running. But eventually she ran out of road and she turned to face the wolf at her back.

She blinks away the tears and stares him down. His eyes are open again, swollen and lifeless. Ready to die, anguish staining part of his being. What pain does he know? All he does is inflict it – this is his fault.

“I did not want this to happen.”

“It did, what you wanted doesn’t matter now,” she growls. He blinks slowly and looks into her eyes. She hates him. It is a visceral thing, hating him. Knowing that all of her suffering, all the death, all the trials she has gone through is because of him. Her childhood ripped from her because of him. A loving mother, nanae, Uthvir and Aili who were practically family to her. The scars on her body.

The world burns in hues of orange and red, too large and great to be tamed by her. She tried. She tried so hard to stop it.

But smoke fills the air and her lungs. It stings her eyes, prickles at the back of her throat.

Kill him, da’len, Nanae’s voice whispers in her ear.

Kill him and be done with it, Uthvir’s voice says.

I don’t want you to die alone, sweetheart, Mama’s voice echoes. Her hands tremble, cursing internally.

She gives a great cry and drops the spear, falling to her knees, sobbing.

“I hate you, I hate you,” she cries, arms coming around herself. Her body aches and trembles and she almost hopes he drives the knife down, but instead she hears his own sobs. He doesn’t deserve it. The tears. He did this, he destroyed everything, whatever sadness he feels is nothing compared to hers.

“Stop…it,” she cries, “you did this.”

“I know,” he sobs.

“And for what? Why did you do this? Did you hate us that much?” She demands, looking up from her prone position. Her skin is cold despite the heat all around her and she longs for death at this point. To see her mama, her nanae. Her family.

He shakes his head, “No. I never hated you.”

“Stop lying, there’s no use in it.”

“I did not think you consequential enough to hate you,” he clarifies and she laughs bitterly. A terrible truth, not a lie. He didn’t care enough to even hate her, hate them.

“If this isn’t what you wanted – what did you want?”

“What does it matter now?”

“Because I want to know what my mother died for.” Her tone is cold and she wishes pain with every word. She should kill him.

A large flare crackles in the distance and she frowns at it. The flames reach up towards the roiling sky and grows into a full blaze. That is what will kill her, she thinks. Or the smoke. Maybe Fen’Harel will finally slay her too.

He looks towards her, face streaked with tears, blood, and dirt.

“Ashokara….”

“My nanae. My friends. My family. Why did you kill them?” She asks, this time more softly. It is the softness that hurts him most. That he forgets that she is only eighteen, still capable of softness despite the world burning around them.

“I planned to revert the world to the state it had been in before Mythal died,” his voice is thin as the smoke begins to fill the air.

“Melarue and Uthvir were alive then,” he tells her and her brow furrows.

“Why are they worth more than my mother? Than Aili? Than…everyone?” She asks and he shakes his head.

“I hoped it would be some consolation.”

“My mother is dead, I am about to be dead. There are no consolations in that,” she coughs and blood spurts up with it. It comes for her soon then, good, she is weary of this world. He doesn’t get solace in any life, whatever he has remaining whatever he may have ever again. But Ash will get some, she’ll see her mama again, she’ll not feel the crushing weight of the dead. Suffocating as she tries to soldier on.

Survive, da’len! Nanae had shouted, sending her running down the escape tunnel. She had tried, but now…now it is time to not.

Let go, Aili had whispered.

But she can’t.

Not now, not ever, she thinks. The only grip that is slipping is the one she has on life. Fen’Harel will die, his blood sinking into the ash beneath them.

She lets her head fall back and exhales. Smoke drifts up from her mouth, a flame dancing in her mouth, sputtering and dying quickly. With the Veil down, her magic feels wild and unrestrained, an untenable burning that had swept away many of his soldiers. She helped burn the world too.

“We were always people,” she tells him.

“I know.”

“Stop saying that! Because if you knew, then this wouldn’t have happened!” She spits. He lets out a long sigh and she is filled with the urge to hit him. Only her fatigue keeps her down.

Fen’Harel falls back, clutching at a wound on his stomach. All they do now is wait until they are overcome by their injuries or the fire gets them.

“Your soul will never sleep,” she tells him, “but I will see my mother again.” It should hurt him, she wants it to hurt him, but he leans forward toward the sky, a light in his eyes. No, no. She knows that look, that spark of hope. She reaches for her spear, ready to strike.

“What are you looking at, wolf?” She demands, following his line of sight.

“It’s a fold…” he murmurs. Ash narrows her eyes. Him and his damn Fade. “Maybe not all is lost…”

“Just…die, be done with it,” she begs, hauling herself to her feet. She raises her spear once more, aimed for his heart. He looks over to her and lets out a breath.

“Focus, Ashokara, one more time. Do you feel that pulsing? The shifting of magic?” He pleads. She scowls but she does feel it, the swirling, pulling strands of magic.

“What does it mean?”

His breathing becomes labored but he smiles, the sort of sick smile a dying man smiles when he realizes he hasn’t died for naught….

“No…no, you couldn’t win – it didn’t work!” She fights but he shakes his head.

“You can change it. Pull on the magic, think of when you’d want to go back to, a memory will work.”

“I have never been good at that magic, you know that,” she says. He nods, and looks back over her shoulder at the green light.

“I know.”

Fen’Harel looks back at her, eyes no longer hopeful but determined. In a flash he reaches over her hand and pulls her spear down into him. Magic blooms from him and from where his hand touches hers, a pain so brilliant springs forth. She is thrust back from him into the churning sky, screaming. She watches as his body falls to the ground and the smoke finally engulfs him.

Dead.

She tumbles into the sky, the magic pulling her forward, and back, pushing at her, asking her, demanding her. Chaos envelopes her and she only has one thought to guide it all.

She wants to go back to before this all began.