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Ashton Greymoore does not have soulmarks.
For all the innate magic they possess, for all the power curling beneath their skin, Ashton Greymoore does not possess the most base of all magics in Exandria. He thinks, at one point, he may have, but then his father took him, and twisted him up into a mockery of the soft thing he once was, and left him blank stone skinned. They do not remember if they had soulmarks or not, when they were young, and soft, and maybe happy. But they do not have them now, so trying to remember would probably just hurt more than anything else.
In the Greymoore Home, the other children will prod and poke and tease at anything they find strikes a nerve, but the dust and winds make pants and long sleeves the most practical choice of clothing, even in the heat, so they have something of an excuse for why no one’s ever seen their soulmarks. The other children compare theirs, a pastime on sleepless nights, hopes for futures outside of the walls of the home, outside of Bassuras, other people waiting for them somewhere out there. And Ashton keeps to themself, keeps mostly quiet unless someone else approaches them, and deftly avoids any conversation about soulmarks.
It’s the people who will become the Nobodies with him who approach him about it first, finally, after all of his avoidance. They show him grayed out marks from soulmates lost, or scars from marks they’ve chosen to remove, platonic and romantic and familial alike. A whole array of different that the rest of the world would scoff at. They don’t ask Asthon to show them his, and he doesn’t offer up the information, but he knows that they know he’s different, and they know that he knows that they have his back.
At least as much as any gutter trash kid can really care about another.
They really wish they were more surprised when the Nobodies end up leaving. They wish they could have hoped for anything more.
But Ashton Greymoore has no soulmarks. Has no soulmates.
Ashton Greymoore is unloveable.
And the Nobodies had lost their soulmates by choice and by force. Ashton was a fool to think that he would be enough to keep any of them around.
~*~*~
Once Ashton is pieced back together again, once they’re done being angry at Milo for saving their life, once they have relearned to walk and to talk and once they have learned to live with never ending pain, they think, for the first time, that they are truly, horribly sad that they don’t have any soulmates. Milo is eccentric and odd and difficult at times, but they are here, and have been here, and are the only person Ashton’s even mildly sure might stick around through a bit of hardship.
They put Ashton back together, after all. If a bit of trouble would scare Milo off, they would have left Ashton dead. He’s nothing but trouble. But Milo had rebuilt him, and had helped him learn to be a person again, and is still here. Still checks in, still worries, still… cares. It’s a strange sensation. Wanting something so badly.
Wanting to be loved. Wanting to be wanted.
Milo, he thinks, is the closest thing he has to a family.
But Ashton Greymoore hits things for money, and their life is at the end of Jiana Hexum’s leash and they don’t do soft like that. They were soft once, they aren’t anymore. And Milo’s just got a golden familial mark they share with Anni. So Ashton takes the longing and shoves it deep, deep down, hides it behind their lungs and ignores the way it makes their chest hurt, and they keep moving.
Nothing else to do.
~*~*~
Fresh Cut Grass shakes the longing loose again.
Ashton finds them unresponsive in a cave and against all better instinct he takes them home and gives them a place to stay, and within the day he has a headache from how incessantly fucking cheerful they are. Every day is a “smiley day!” and every person they think is a possible friend and they can’t make it around half of the Fownsee Hollow without Ashton carrying them around and they’re heavy and carrying them hurts, and they… worry.
Ashton would be lying if they said no one held any concern for them. They know that Milo and Anni care in their own ways. But it’s nothing compared to how Letters fusses. He’s disgustingly insightful, noticing each of Ashton’s little quirks and oddities, their tells when they’re pushing back pain or exhaustion or even just being hungover when they have to drag themself out of bed to go do some stupid menial task for Hexum. FCG notices and they care , impossibly, improbably.
And again, Ashton finds themself shoving down longing and hurt and something like despair. For all that Fresh Cut Grass cares, they care about everything . Ashton still has no soulmarks. Ashton is still unloveable.
For the first time, they’re really starting to care about that. For the first time, they desperately wish that wasn’t true.
~*~*~
Bell’s Hells are different.
Different is a generous descriptor.
They’re a fucking disaster. They are the seconds before a fireball hits its mark, they are a skyship falling from the air, they are a powder keg inches from open flame.
They’re not fit for anything, really.
But maybe that’s why they go together so well. Not one of them is well adjusted in the slightest, not even Orym, the steadiest member of their fucked up little group.
It may also have something to do with the fact that several of them are soulmates.
Orym and Fearne and Dorian have the yellow of a deep bond, the type families and devoted lifelong partners share, golden lines shaping a hatch-topped pie in a bed of wild flowers. The witches each bear a golden crescent moon adorned in lavender and wrapped in thread.
Imogen and Laudna have a red romantic mark shaped like a bird skull backed by branching lightning. Orym and Dorian have a little red flower in front of a storm cloud. Orym and Dorian are pointedly not talking about their shared red mark. Probably because of the faded red on Orym’s shoulder, a little moon nestled in the crescent of a larger moon, and surrounded by other tattoos like those’ll hide the death of whoever he loved before. Fearne’s even got a red mark, a flicker of flame encased in a crystal, for a soulmate she apparently hasn’t met yet.
Fearne has a golden familial mark she shares with Nana Morri, Orym has one he shares with his family back home, Dorian’s got one he shares with that idiot of a brother he’s got, Imogen’s even got a golden mark for her mother, slightly faded though it might be.
And they each have a blue mark for each other. All of Bell’s Hells bear a platonic mark for the other members of the group. Even Letters has their little etchings that faintly glow on the inside of their chassis, clearly magical.
It’s a mess of things, their platonic mark. A chisel, a sword, a pair of scissors, a lute, blades of grass, a little flame, a lucky horseshoe, an hourglass. An amalgamation of all of them, and someone they’ve yet to meet apparently, pressed together into one delicate design in bright cerulean blue.
And Ashton has nothing but veins of gold marring his body, a cruel mockery of a mark for the families that left him to die.
Somehow, they manage to hide it. They’ve never even told Letters how broken they are, how they’re missing every mark they were born with, they won’t make that mistake again after the Nobodies thought that made them disposable. So their little metal friend can’t go spilling the beans by accident, and the others have known right from the start that Ashton is prickly, rough around the edges, so they haven’t asked. Even when the group has little conversations about soulmates, when Fearne and Dorian and Orym tell the others about meeting, when Imogen and Laudna explain how they started traveling together, when Orym finally feels okay enough to tell them all about his husband, Ashton manages to duck questions about his own soulmates. Or lack thereof.
Through infiltrating the Moon Tower, freeing him from Hexum, heading to Bassuras, through Orym and Fearne and Laudna dying, through Whitestone and losing Eshteross, through countless games of ‘What the fuck is up with that?’, through all of it, Ashton’s able to keep it a secret.
And then they meet up with the Gorgynei, to help Chet’s journey of self discovery or enlightenment or whatever, and someone has the bright idea that they’re going to run through the forest naked. And Ashton’s in a good mood, they’ve helped Chet take a big step, and Orym’s got a fancy new sword, and the Gorgynei are cool, he likes it here, and the others are all in such a good mood and… He’s not really thinking.
It’s night, and half of them don’t have darkvision and no one’s paying attention to him anyway. It’s Chetney’s night.
Ashton spends so much of his time feeling like an outsider among the Hells. They’re all soulmates and he’s just there , desperately searching for a handhold, there to soak up damage and keep them safe and at first that was to indebt them all to him, to make them owe him something so he could get them to help him figure out who he is, but now it’s because he cares . Ashton Greymoore has no soulmates, Ashton Greymoore is unlovable, so they do not say they love anybody, because that is setting themself up for failure, but they care about these people so fucking much it hurts and sure, they like him, but he is nothing to them. Not the way they are to each other.
Ashton Greymoore has no soulmarks.
The only thing Ashton Greymoore has ever truly wanted, wanted in a way that he could not seize by the throat and take it for himself, is a place he actually belongs.
So when the others strip and start running through the trees, joyous, Ashton follows. He joins, because he does not want to be left behind.
Ashton Greymoore wants to belong.
~*~*~
They make it to Yios before it catches up with them.
Bell’s Hells spend a few hours gambling in the casino, exploring where they’ve found lodging, getting food and drink sent up to the room, and just when everyone’s comfortable, just when Ashton’s had just too much too drink to really see it coming, Chetney hits them with it.
“So. Are your marks all hiding in all the gold?”
Ashton freezes, bottle halfway up to their lips. “The fuck are you talking about, old man?”
“Your soulmarks. Didn’t see any when we were running around the woods the other night.” Chetney hiccups. He’s had more than a little bit to drink. Maybe Ashton can salvage this? “Everyone’s been wondering why you never showed ‘em off, but we didn’t see any . What the fuck is up with that?”
Ashton feels as though their heart has plummeted into their stomach. He’s gotten away with this for so long . And yes, they’re reckless and sometimes they’re stupid, but they’re not careless . Not entirely. They’ve been so careful to keep this quiet. They’ve been masterful at avoiding conversations about it. The last people who knew he was broken were the Nobodies and they used that against him in the end. He was someone no one would miss. He was untethered, unmatched, unmarked. He can still hear them, their voices, when they left him behind.
He’s dead just leave him
No one will notice
No one will miss him
He’s unmarked, he’s dead, just leave him
Like they knew he’d be the perfect scapegoat, before they even knew he’d be a scapegoat.
They didn’t want to be that to the Hells. They didn’t want to end up reduced to a damage sponge who no one will miss because they haven’t got even a single soulmate to watch a mark fade. There’ll be no trace of Ashton Greymoore when he’s gone and the thought fucking terrifies him. He doesn’t want to be left alone again. He didn’t want them to know this.
And one stupid fucking choice has gone and ruined it all. His desperate want to belong has singled him out in the end.
“Maybe cause it’s none of your fucking business,” he snaps, finally, lashing out in anger because that’s the easiest thing to process, that’s the easiest thing to manage. It comes to him the quickest, the rage, making his head spark and lights dance across their candlelit room.
“Ash,” someone says, so quietly, and Ashton looks up into Fearne’s wide eyes. Fearne, who’s all soft edges and a soft voice and warmth and care in such a sideways manner that Ashton has really come to crave. She gets the awkward pieces of him, the odd way he expresses emotions that aren’t rage. She echoes them back at him. She lets him steal, she lets him not ask. She doesn’t ask.
Gods, Ashton really wants her not to ask right now.
But Ashton’s never been that kind of lucky, so the next words out of Fearne’s mouth are, “Everyone’s kinda wondering. We didn’t know how to ask. Well they didn’t know how to ask, I still think that it’s silly how people are about their soulmates on the Material Plane. Whatever, anyway. You should tell us. Do they look different? Cause you’re all rocky?”
Laudna turns Pate in their direction. “Oh! Yes, that’s a very good question. Do they still look like tattoos on your skin? Is that why we couldn’t notice?”
And then they’re all speaking over each other. Laudna and Chet and Fearne and Letters all poking for answers, and Orym making a token effort to get them to back off and there’s the brush of Imogen’s presence in his mind as she tries to speak to him and suddenly everyone talking is going to make his fucking head explode.
So Ashton explodes first.
“I don’t fucking have any! Okay? Fuck off!”
The room falls silent. Ashton’s gaze falls to the floor.
“Ash—” Imogen starts, but they cut her off and duck the outstretched hand she directs their way.
“Fuck off. I’m not talking about this. Don’t make a big deal. It’s fucking nothing.”
And he turns on his heel and stalks out the door.
By the time Ashton returns, the others are asleep or on their way to it, so they slip into a corner and pass out without being waylaid by more questions. In the morning, there are more important things to do, and Ashton distracts Fearne by playing along with her Professor Calloway bit, and Chetney with a few questions about woodworking, and Laudna by speaking with Pate, and then they have to peel away from the group to make sure Violet hasn’t followed them here to cause trouble, which of course, leads to trouble, and by the time Ashton makes it back to Bell’s Hells, they are all more concerned with the fact that he is alive and well and not caught up in something that he shouldn’t be, and they have far bigger fish to fry. The questions don’t start again.
~*~*~
They know the others are talking about them, is the thing.
They can see it in the sideways glances Laudna and Chetney think they’re hiding. They see it in the little things Fearne is leaving in their belt pouches, the way she’s taking less and leaving more, or swapping things out instead of just stealing. They see it in the way Letters is hovering about them. They see it in the way Imogen keeps brushing into their mind, leaving waves of worry behind.
Ashton fucking hates this.
He knows he’s a broken thing, it’s easy enough to see when anyone looks at him, but he’s gone to such lengths to keep people from treating him like it that this level of gentleness is fucking grating.
They want to claw the gold from their stone skin. It’d hurt less.
Especially here in the Feywild, in a space so strange and horrifying they feel almost at home. Strange plants trying to kill them aside, Fearne’s little corner of the Feywild is one of their favorite places they think they’ve ever been. There’s a sour note to it though, knowing they’re being watched like a chipped vase, waiting for the moment they’ll shatter at too strong a touch.
So he throws himself into being useful. Even if they’re damaged, people don’t throw things away if they’re useful enough.
Through the Feywild, and Imogen’s home town, and the end of the fucking world the Solstice is meant to bring about, they make themself useful. Getting tossed to the other side of the fucking planet doesn’t really help that. But they still try. Deni$e is a breath of fresh air. Prism and Bor’Dor are too. They don’t know Ashton’s broken, and Orym and Laudna don’t offer up the information, so for the first time in a while, they’re traveling, however briefly, with people who don’t look at him with that pitying gleam in their eye.
Deni$e is so covered in tattoos it’s impossible to tell if she has a soulmate or several, though she does point one red one out when she mentions Dariax. Prism’s covered head to toe, and so green to the world as a whole, she doesn’t seem to have other people’s hang-ups on any sort of soulmate business, and Bor’Dor…
Well Ashton knew something was up with him. They just wish it had been something else.
They wish they could have done more than shield Prism from watching him die. But they’re still making themself useful.
And after that betrayal—
It’s always betrayal in the end, a voice in his head whispers, you’re not meant to keep anyone. You’re meant to be left in the end. You’re not meant to be kept.
—after that betrayal, getting back to the other Hells and their pitying glances is a relief all over again. He wants to be angry, really. They had a great time, it seems. Sure, they faced their own issues, but FRIDA and FCG are thick and thieves, and Fearne and Chetney and Deanna are sharing little whispers and looks and laughs, and they’re all decked out in fancy new outfits. Ashton and Orym and Laudna have only come back with their hands covered in more blood and a jumpiness that shows no sign of fading.
And Ashton…
Ashton really missed Fearne. They don’t want to admit it. They won’t say they love people. It will only end poorly for them. But they missed Fearne. It was one of the foremost thoughts in their mind the whole time they were gone.
It seems Fearne hardly missed them at all. She had Chetney and Deanna to occupy her time, apparently. And Ashton’s not the jealous type. Fearne isn’t his in any way, they don’t share a soul mark, she’s free to do as she pleases. But something still roils in their gut thinking about it, how much they’d been thinking about missing the others, while the others were just making friends in Uthodurn.
They have to stop themself from that line of thought before they get truly angry. It’s not anyone else’s fault, what had happened. And it’s not like the other Hells were having a walk in the park either.
Ashton’s just upset.
And rage comes to them easiest.
They really aren’t meant for love like a soulmate, they suppose. If they were, they wouldn’t be so angry all the time.
~*~*~
The anger doesn’t fade for a while, even in the relative peace of Zephrah. Orym’s hometown is an idyllic little place, one he can’t imagine wanting to leave if he had the family Orym has. He supposes, considering the losses Orym faced here too, he can understand wanting to leave. Needing to leave. But he looks at Orym with him mom and his sisters-in-law and his mother-in-law and the little golden cherry blossoms inked into all of their skin, he sees the way they all get when the Hells bring Baernie home, and he can’t imagine ever wanting to run from that, even if there were pieces of that puzzle missing.
When they have a panic attack, after learning about being titan of blood , it might be a little bit about the fact that they know they’ll never have something so meaningful in their life.
But they pick themself up off the ground and pull it together and don’t tell anyone about that shit, because people are counting on them. They’re going to be a fucking hero, they’re going to mean something . Even if they’re not going to leave a mark on anyone when they die, they’re going to leave a mark somehow .
They’re going to be a hero.
They’re going to matter. They have to.
~*~*~
Ashton’s growing to dislike Bassuras a little. He never loved or hated the place much. But he held some level of affection for the only place he remembers being raised. Coming back, having to fight to free Imahara Joe, and dealing with the Paragon’s Call and having to seek out any of the Nobodies who might be in town… he’s coming to have a mild dislike for the place.
They know things are liable to go a little sideways, showing his face around old haunts, so they’re glad to have Imogen along for the ride, but they’re not necessarily thrilled she’s there when they do find Shady Sally, and a smirk creeps onto her face at the sight of Ashton as she raises a dagger in a manner that would be threatening to anyone else.
“Well, well, well. As I live and fucking breathe.”
“I am alive. No thanks to you,” Ashton snaps back. They came out here seeking the Nobodies out. They shouldn’t feel so unsteady finally laying eyes on her again.
“Pleasant surprise to see you’re still walking around,” Sally says, breezing right past Ashton’s attitude.
Ashton sighs. “Good to know it’s pleasant.” Sally laughs, and Ashton’s grip on his hammer tightens. “You’re just who I was looking for.”
“You said you were looking for Justi.”
“I was looking for Justi trying to find you or Pocket or… fucking someone.”
Sally lowers the dagger, inclining her head a little. “What’re you looking for us for? And who is this?”
Ashton slides a little in front of Imogen. “We've got some debts to settle, and I feel like we're running out of time to settle them, times being what they are.” He takes a deep breath. “This is Imogen. New crew.”
Sally barks out a laugh, loud enough that a couple of the folks sleeping in the back startle at the sound, shuffling in their sleep, rousing to consciousness. Ashton grits his teeth.
Imogen’s voice slides into their head. Who is this?
“This is one of the Nobodies, that group of people who left me bleeding on the street after everything went fucking bad,” Ashton replies, out loud, because Sally deserves to fucking hear that.
Imogen smiles, a grin too sharp to be considered friendly. “Oh, I’ve heard so much about you.”
Sally sneers. “Let’s be fair. Tables turned, you would’ve left me, done the same. You’re pretty fucking broken.”
And there is something so condescending in her tone, something so grating and made to hurt in that statement that Ashton can’t help himself. He snaps and he lashes out, hammer thumping to the ground as he lunges to punch Sally in the fucking teeth.
But he’s upset and he’s shaken, and when he swings, she just catches it, clicking her tongue and shaking her head.
“You can do better than that.”
Sally swings at him then, and Ashton is so overwhelmed with the hurt he feels that his head sparks and flickers and he feels time slow around them, Sally slowing with it. They grab the front of Sally’s shirt and lay her out on the floor with a heavy thud.
She shouts, more in surprise than in pain; Ashton knows she’s taken worse hits than that. She lies there, coughing for a moment as she catches her breath, and then something mean glints in her eye as she struggles partially upright again.
“Don’t get all out of sorts, Ash. You know you are. You tell your new crew that yet?” She looks past Ashton to Imogen. “Did he, sweetheart? He tell you how broken he is? Even before the fall. He’s unloveable. Not a mark on him. He’s fucking defective —”
Ashton punches her hard enough to lay her out again, their whole body shaking as they stand and step away from her.
“Ashton,” Imogen says, a low level of concern in her voice that almost grates at Ashton, at the same time as Justi peeks her head out and greets him too.
They ignore Imogen to say hi to Justi as they shake out their hand. “Sally tripped, poor thing. Always was a little clumsy.”
“Fuck you.” Sally stands and snorts something out of her pouch and levels Ashton with a glare he returns in kind.
“Listen,” they say, barely keeping a lid on the rage churning in their gut. “I spent all this time indentured to that fucking bitch, paying off your debts, and now, we're going to get even. We're going to be dealing with the fucking big red fucking ball in the sky. The crew needs to get back together, and they need to get here. We're not getting the gang officially back together, but you're really fucking good at what you do, and we're going to need everybody who's good at what they fucking do. If you can find everybody, if you can be ready when shit goes down, I will never darken your door again.”
“I can’t make any promises,” Sally says right away.
“You owe them,” Imogen snaps back, before Ashton even has a chance to speak. “You owe Ash, for leaving them like that. And for calling him broken. He ain’t, and you know it.”
Sally scoffs. “He was broken before he fell, honey. Rest of the Nobodies got rid of their marks for one reason or another by choice, but Ashton’s blank and broke. Always has been.” She spits blood at Ashton’s feet. “I’ll do what I can. But people are hard to find.” And she stalks off.
Ashton wishes he could stop thinking about her as easily as she walks away, but her words haunt him, dancing around them as he and Imogen speak with Justi and follow her further in than he’s ever been and make promises they maybe shouldn’t be making.
On their way back, Imogen finally breaks the heavy tension. “You know she’s not right, Ash. You know that, right?”
He laughs, and there is no humor in it. “You know she is.”
Imogen stops them there, right where they stand, despite the fact that that is unsafe for the kind of heat they’ve got on them right now.
“No. She’s not. You’re not broken cause you don’t have soulmarks, and she’s kind of a bitch for saying that.”
Ashton groans, dragging a hand over their own face and leveling Imogen with a flat look. “She’s not wrong. What the fuck else…” They let out a sound so frustrated it’s practically a growl, and cover their eyes with a hand for a second. “Imogen. I’m not… you don’t… fuck ! I’m unmarked! Entirely! My own fucking family— gods , I wouldn’t be like this if I wasn’t fucked up! I’m unloveable! That’s something I came to terms with a long time ago. Your turn to do the same.”
“ Ashton , that’s not—”
He turns and stalks the rest of the way to the hideout before she can finish, far enough away that she can’t easily talk to him to continue the conversation, but not far enough he couldn’t tackle her out of the way of danger if something happened.
Despite the fact that he’s unloveable, he can’t seem to stop caring about these people. It’s deeply inconvenient.
They step back into the hideout.
“You were gone so long!” Laudna says immediately, loose hairs twisted around her fingers like she’s been pulling it out.
“It was like an hour and twenty minutes,” Orym mutters.
Ashton winces, but tries for something lighthearted anyway. “We’ve seen things.”
“What’s going on here?” Imogen asks, crossing the room to wrap her arms around Laudna.
FCG cuts in. “Laudna thought Ashton mighta kidnapped you.”
And that cuts right into Ashton’s core, of course they’d all think that, that he’s enough of a loose cannon to hurt another member of the party, of course they think that little of him, he’s fucking unloveable —
And maybe that’s just the encounter with Sally speaking. He’s hurt but it’s probably nothing, really, so he shakes his head and shrugs and goes along with it.
“That’s fair. That’s something that could’ve happened.”
Laudna relaxes, seemingly placated, and turns her attention back to Imogen, apologizing to her, and explaining she’d been distracted.
Ashton deflates a little. They are, if nothing else, a great scapegoat.
~*~*~
They think, when they find the great tree Evontra’vir and learn they’re a part of an old prophecy, and they’ve got a shard of a fucking titan in them, that maybe, maybe , they’re meant for something greater. Maybe, even if they can’t leave a mark on any people, if they won’t be remembered by love, then at least they’ll be remembered for something. At least they’ll mean something.
It’s a fucking pipedream, maybe, but its something, and they cling to it desperately, through trying to convince Fearne to take the shard of Rau’shan, because they’d really fucking like to be remembered alongside her, and through deciding to take the shard themself. He’s going to be something, he’s going to be more than what his father wanted, he’s going to be more than what the Nobodies think of him, more than just another Greymoore kid scraping by in the bad parts of town in some shit place in Marquet. He’s going to be something .
They’re going to make it happen for themself.
Maybe they’ve got no soulmarks, or soulmates. Maybe he’s unloveable. But he’s going to be fucking remembered.
~*~*~
Ashton’s on fire.
Or maybe he’s not anymore, but it sure fucking feels like he is.
Their right arm feels numb. The faintest feeling of pressure lets them know that something’s there, despite the fact that they definitely recall that arm just falling off in the middle of that spectacular fuck up, but they can’t feel it. The gold that holds them together feels scalding, from the surface of their stone skin to the places it pulls them together deeper.
His head is pounding. He’s pretty sure a second ago, his head was in pieces. If he ever sees Deanna again, he’s going to have to buy her a drink or twelve for how fucking useful that ring was. Her ring is the only reason he’s alive.
Fearne kicks him in the face.
Fearne hits them with their own hammer. They’re pretty sure Fearne is trying to shatter their hammer on the ground next to them.
They can hear screaming. So much screaming. They don’t know if it’s them making that sound or Fearne or both of them or someone else.
He hurts. Everything hurts so fucking much. He’d cry if he could.
One fucking week.
He’s known who he is for one fucking week, and he’s already followed in his father’s worst footsteps. They feel Imogen pushing into their head, and they cannot find the strength to stop her. They’re so fucking weak.
It’s only been one week. They’ve only known who and what they are for a week, and they’ve gone and ruined everything. His father fucked up in this exact way and it fucked over everyone around them and he’s known that for a single fucking week and gone and fucked over all his friends the same exact fucking way. He can’t stop the flashes of visions he saw while he was out from playing again. Visions of himself, soft again, and just as bereft of soulmarks, cruel and wicked and selfish and unloveable . He wonders if Imogen gets it now. If she’s finally accepted what Shady Sally had spat at them in Bassuras. Ashton’s just fucking broken.
It feels like he’s swallowed lava. People are talking all around them, Fearne’s leaving, Chetney’s following, Orym’s going after them. It feels like his ribs are going to melt. They claw at their own chest, desperately, panicked. They’re going to die all over again. He barely turns on his side quickly enough to cough and cough and cough and gag and retch and choke and… spit up the shard.
Their whole body sags. They can feel that something’s sparked within them, they know the shard did something. But it didn’t take. It didn’t work. All of that. All of that and they died for nothing. It didn’t work.
All for fucking nothing.
Laudna leaves.
Imogen and Letters stare down at him.
He doesn’t have a good enough excuse. He doesn’t have a good enough explanation.
They have nothing.
Their voice sounds like shit when they speak again. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.”
“What the fuck were you thinking, Ashton!” Letters shouts.
“I thought it was a good idea.”
Ashton can’t get their eyes open all the way. They’re so tired, and everything hurts. Like the low-level hurt they’ve always got, except now it’s a deep burning that’s going to eat him alive, cauterize the capillaries in his lungs and stop his heart from beating. They can’t move.
“I was stupid,” they try.
“No, you were power hungry,” Imogen snaps.
“No, no , that’s not it,” he says, stressing that more than anything else. Because he wasn’t. He wasn’t doing this for the power. Part of it for his own gain, sure, but they weren’t doing it for the power. “It’s… I don’t know. I don’t know what I wanted. I wanted my fucking family. I wanted to matter. I wanted to be something. I wanted… There was a second there, where I saw a me where everything had gone to plan and I was there with my family, and I was fucking awful , I was selfish, and conceited, and—”
“So how is that person any different than the you I’m looking at?” Letters says, and Ashton has to struggle not to show how much that hurts.
“Vicious. Unloveable cause he’d earned it.” He covers his face with the one arm he can still really feel. “The only thing I knew about them is that they fucked up, and I did the same thing. I thought I wanted… I fucked up. This is all my fault. It’s all my fault. Gods I’m stupid.”
“Who did you even do this for? Your parents? You? Cause you sure as hell didn’t do it for us,” Imogen says.
“I don’t know.”
“You fucked us all over with that. You know that, right? We were supposed to go fight some big battle, we can’t do that now. We can’t go anywhere now.”
“I thought it was going to help. I wanted to help.”
Ashton lifts their arm from their face just in time to see Letters throw their hands into the air. “This didn’t help! Do you even care about the people we’re fighting for? For any of us? For anyone? Name one person you care about!”
“You,” Ashton says without any hesitation.
“You didn’t do this for me.”
“I thought it would make me better! I thought a better me could—”
Imogen cuts him off, “You don’t need power to be better, Ashton.”
“It wasn’t about power! It’s about being whole . It’s… I’m broken. I’m flawed. I’m unmarked and unloveable, but I just… I thought if I did this I could still matter. I thought this was what I was supposed to do to be helpful.”
Imogen sighs. “Well maybe there’s a reason for everything. Maybe this was supposed to happen.”
Ashton thinks maybe they were supposed to stay dead.
They’d rather have stayed dead than have seen that horrible look of betrayal on Fearne’s face.
He never meant to hurt her. He never meant to hurt anyone.
He never means to hurt anyone.
~*~*~
They get up to their room eventually, FCG in tow, shaking and unsteady on their feet. They throw open all the windows and lay out flat on their back on the cool stone floor. They’re afraid they’ll set the bedclothes alight if they get in the bed right now.
“I’m sorry I’ve given you so much shit about your recent faith thing,” he says softly, after so long in silence. “It’s been shitty. I’ve been shitty. I’m going to shut up about it.”
“I’ll stop with it too,” Letters says, “I know I’ve maybe been forcing it a little, but I’m… I’ve been trying to get her to show you a sign, to try to get you to believe in something or trust someone but—”
“My problem isn’t one she can fix. I’m not something the gods are going to fix. I’m worried you’re going to get yourself killed for her and I know she wouldn’t die for you, and I think that’s fucked, and I… I’m not really qualified to be having opinions on other people’s choices right now but… yeah.”
Letters bobs their little metal head in a nod, rocking back and forth on their wheel next to Ashton’s strange new arm. “I really like her, Ashton, and I know she’s not perfect, but I care about her and she cares about me and I care about you, and other people do, too. And I just wish you would-- I wish you would care back. As long as I've known you, you really don't care about anything. At least, that's what you say. And I think maybe it's time that you did.”
“I think that’s my problem. I-- I care about-- I care about all of you so much. I care about anything I can see. I just don't think I care about me at all. I’m not made to be cared about by anyone else. Don’t have a single soulmark. Kinda hard to care about myself, knowing that. Even if that’s not… I mean… I’ve spent so long hearing it that… I think that might be a problem.”
“Ashton.” Letters’ voice goes hard. Not mean, but a tone that leaves little room for argument. Ashton hasn’t really heard this one before. “I know you’ve learned a lot of things growing up, and I know a lot of people put a lot of stock in soulmates and all, but just cause you don’t have them doesn’t mean you don’t matter. And it doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t care. We care. We love you. Soulmarks or no. You need to understand that, and stop telling us we can’t, just cause of some silly marks.”
Ashton’s breath hitches in his chest.
Because logically, he knows that. He knows that a soulmark isn’t the end all, be all of everything there is. But there’s something that feels safer about pushing people away before they have the chance to push him away. Make sure he isn’t left behind again. He can’t be abandoned if he doesn’t care . He can’t be hurt if he keeps his guard up, if he’s prepared for it.
Letters makes a sound that could be a sigh, if they had any lungs in their little metal body, and rocks back and forth on their wheel as they speak up again.
“Alright. I’m gonna let you sit with that for a second and go see if I can track down any of the others that took off. Try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone?”
“I’m sorry,” Ashton rasps out, for lack of anything better to say.
“I know you are.” And FCG is gone.
Ashton stays where he is on the floor for… a while. They can’t think of anything better to do. They’ve fucked up so monumentally with this, while seeking out something they should’ve known better than to reach for. But they’ve wanted for so long, they’ve wanted to belong, they’ve wanted a place, and this had the potential to be one, and even if it was gone at least he’d feel like he could actually be justified in being angry that he lost it.
All he’s done is drive away the closest he’s got to people who give a fuck about him. Gods, he feels fucking stupid.
Guilt gnaws at his ribs, like a rabid dog chewing scraps from a stray bone, digging and digging and digging in until he feels like he can’t breathe for how tight his chest is.
They raise a hand to rub at their sternum, trying to stave off the panic only to realize that it’s their right arm and their right arm is no longer really their own.
Ashton stares down at the foreign appendage, twisting and turning it in every direction he can think to try to gauge how much feeling he’s truly got in it, trying to get accustomed to how it shifts and moves, how it responds to him.
Something catches his eye as he does. The veins of magma have dulled from their vibrant glow of earlier, right after he’d expelled the shard, but the divots in his arm still remain, jagged, carving through his arm like veins do in soft people, dark orange in coloration.
Except for a few marks cut through the stone that are more deliberate in their shaping, and are differently colored than the veins.
The golden mark of a gear and an hourglass and a wrench and guitar that Milo, Anni and Letters bear.
The blue mark the rest of the Hells share.
The red flame encased in crystal that Fearne’s got in the center of her chest for the love she has yet to meet.
Ashton’s going to be fucking sick.
There’s no way that these are supposed to be there. He’s not made for this, he’s not meant to be loved, he’s not made to be soft, he’s been hardened by experience and the cruelty of the world and his own horrible choices and pure bad fucking luck. They’re not supposed to be loveable.
They’ve spent their entire remembered life coming to terms with that.
What the fuck are they supposed to do with soulmates now?
What the fuck is up with that?
What kind of cruel fucking cosmic joke is it that they get these marks through the very act that’s driven away almost every single person he shares them with?
Ashton rockets to his feet, on the verge of hyperventilating.
They need to get out of this room. He flees out the door and out the nearest exit, paying little mind to where he’s actually headed besides out until he ends up outside, amidst a pile of shattered glass, right next to the lord of the house.
Ashton blinks, surprise stealing any intelligent words he has left.
“Why’d you break all those windows?” they ask stupidly.
“Funny thing, children. Sometimes they are a reflection of yourself in ways you don’t expect,” Lord de Rolo responds. He’s leaning on his cane, absently thumbing at a golden mark on his wrist. For his children, Ashton thinks. Must be.
“Do you think that’s them paying attention to who you are, or do you think that’s just something in them no matter what, my Lord?” Ashton can’t help but copy the action, rubbing at their newly formed soulmarks.
“Well. I think it’s a bit of both to be honest.”
Ashton sighs. That’s fair, but it has to be more inherent if he could end up like this. “I just did something so stupid that is a perfect reflection of people I’d never met. I just could have been them. Might as well have been.”
Lord de Rolo chuckles softly. “The moment I met you, I knew you were destined for stupidity.”
“You’re clearly smarter than me,” Ashton scoffs.
“Oh, extremely. And yet, I know the look of one who’s tussled with their demons. Trust me, I’ve had my own.”
“I fucked up real hard. I don’t know if they’re ever going to— I don’t know if I’m worth trusting. I fucked up.” They pressed their nail into the edge of one of the marks, trying to feel anything in this dead stone arm. “I drove a wedge between us and the very fucking thing that did it is what gave me—” He cuts himself off. Lord de Rolo probably doesn’t give a fuck about all of this.
Lord de Rolo shifts, his tense posture fading a little into something more… Well Ashton won’t call it friendly, but he will say it’s less guarded.
“We all make terrible mistakes, especially those of us who want to make a difference. The first key is to make sure nobody sees them. Should that fail, you do everything you can to make up for it. If that fails, well then you go away to a hillside somewhere and live in the bushes and no one will see you again.”
“You have really nice bushes here, I have to say.”
“Not these bushes. You’re not invited.”
That startles a little chuckle out of Ashton, but doesn’t quite get them to smile. “I figured I’d ask.”
“No. But do punish yourself as much as you feel is necessary. It’s good for the soul.”
“I will,” Ashton says quietly, staring down at their forearm and the three new marks that adorn it. “Though this might be punishment enough for a lifetime.”
Lord de Rolo’s gaze flickers their way, taking in the marks with a keen eye.
“Did you lose soulmarks, when your arm changed?”
Ashton shakes his head, voice cracking when he tries to speak. “No. I… I’ve never had any. Not that I can remember. I’ve spent my whole life with none and then I just… I fuck up bad enough to drive them all away and that’s the moment I get these marks.” They dig their finger into the red mark, hard enough they can almost actually feel it. Maybe he’s imagining things. “I could’ve killed her today.”
“I did get my wife killed,” Lord de Rolo says, with a tone to his voice that says that this still haunts him, and an expression that says that he wasn’t really expecting to say this to Ashton.
“Before or after you were married?”
“Well before.” He brings his cane up and swats at Ashton’s hand, knocking it away from his marks. Probably for the best. “I thought her brother would’ve killed me for it. And I thought I would have deserved it.”
“And she forgave you? How?”
Lord de Rolo sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. Somewhere, another glass window shatters. Ashton hears a child and Chetney giggling over it. It almost makes him smile.
“How much do you know of this city’s history?”
“I know it killed Laudna.”
“It killed my family as well. And in the wake of that, I made some… incredibly poor decisions, as you could’ve guessed. I made a deal, in my efforts to get my revenge, and in doing so, my soulmarks disappeared.” Every word is deliberate. He’s not going to tell Ashton what he did, not clearly, but he’s still sharing more than Ashton ever expected he would. “It wasn’t until years later that they returned. After I’d died myself, and been resurrected. Quite similarly to yourself, in a way. When Vex’ahlia died, I was still unmarked. I didn’t regain her mark for months to come after that, and it still felt like something I was unworthy of. You just have to learn to live with that feeling, and try to make amends, and hope that it is enough.”
“I don’t know if there’s anything that I can do that’ll fix this,” Ashton admits.
“You won’t know until you try. Punish yourself if you must, but don’t drag them down with you.”
“You don't-- Well, that's not true. I was going to say you don't show your damage, but you do. You do wear it well, though.”
Lord de Rolo nods, tapping fingers on the ornately carved head of his otherwise plain cane. “It comes with years of wearing things well. And surrounding yourself with better people.” Ashton follows his gaze down to where Gwendolyn and Chetney are scanning for more windows to break. “Keep trying to make amends. If you ask, perhaps they’ll tell you what you have to do to regain their trust. Maybe they won’t. One way or another, the world continues to turn.”
Another window shatters.
Ashton snorts. “I don’t imagine you’d need anything but… I owe you a favor.”
Lord de Rolo offers the smallest of smiles. “I’ll keep it in mind.” And he turns away, off to collect his daughter from the horrible influence of Chetney Pock o’Pea.
As Ashton heads back inside, the guilt still gnawing at his chest, but the anxiety abated a little, he hears Chetney shout, “The fuzz! Run!”
~*~*~
He meets up with Chetney, Imogen, and Letters in the dining hall later, trying to figure out what to do now. Orym’s out, somewhere, Laudna’s gone, Fearne was at least accounted for before she took off. Chetney checks out the shard, and more notably, checks out a bottle of liquor as they discuss whether or not to go after Laudna. Ashton rubs the soul marks on their arm, hidden from the others by his distance and the angle he’s sitting at.
“I'm sorry. And whatever you need, I will do whatever it takes to help find her. We'll have her back as soon as possible. I promise,” Ashton offers to Imogen, when it becomes clear they’re not really sure what Laudna could have gotten up to, or where she could be. The guilt coils in his gut, making him feel nauseous. This is all his fault.
Imogen takes that, though, by some miracle. “Thank you, Ash.”
And Ashton’s just about to breathe a sigh of relief at that when Chetney chimes in, words colored by anger and the alcohol. “Whatever it takes?”
“Yes. Might take some time but—” Ashton’s cut off by Chetney interjecting again.
“You should leave.”
“Leave what?” Letters asks.
“You should go.”
“Like now?”
Ashton ignores FCG’s question and just stands, turning to leave as Chetney demands. No one’s stopping him, so they must be okay with it. He was going to show the others the soulmarks, explain how they’d shown up and tell them all that he was sorry, and he knew just saying sorry wasn’t going to cut it, so he would prove it with actions, because if they’d let him stay, he wants to keep them, he wants to belong, but… that doesn’t seem advisable right now.
Chetney wants him gone. No one is arguing. So he’s going to go.
“If you're going to do things for yourself, then do them! But don't risk us! I understand what it's like to look out for yourself, try and experiment with new things. But if I thought I couldn't control this, I would've fucking left! I don't trust you! You could have hurt Fearne!”
Like they aren’t already so incredibly, acutely fucking aware of that fact right now.
Ashton plants a heel and turns on it, standing firm despite how much every part of him aches.
“I thought you wanted me to leave,” he says.
“And yet,” Chetney says, far too steady for how drunk he sounded a moment ago, “you stay.”
“Well, you talked to me. I don't know if I'm going or staying yet. I think, honestly, that is not up to me, mostly. But I'm thinking about it, and I don't trust me either. So I'm trying something. Actually, I've got a question. What did you do before you could control this? I mean, I've seen you lose your shit once, but what did you do? How did you handle it? What did you do?”
“I killed things. I hurt a lot of people.”
“Well, I'm glad you stopped,” Ashton says, and he means it. They like the old man. He’s their fucking soulmate. They like him and they mean it, but they also know he’s not a paragon of control. “And I don't know, I'm processing a lot right now, but if I do stay, if you let me stay, the day something happens and it goes bad for you and you hurt a lot of people because, for any reason somebody gets in your head, something bad happens, something pushes you over the edge, something just fucking stupid. Stay or go, I promise that I will stick around, help clean it up. You will get no shit from me. None. But for now, I'll go.”
And he spins around again, and ignores the way that makes them feel nauseous, and they go, and they hope to the gods that someone comes to get them eventually, or at least that the others are still here in the morning.
~*~*~
The others are still there in the morning, minus Fearne and Laudna, who have still not turned up. It makes him itch all over, knowing he’s driven Fearne away for so long. Orym’s still not really speaking to him, and when Fearne comes up to them all, she only checks on the others, hardly acknowledging him, which stings even worse than just not knowing where she is, but Chetney doesn’t tell him to leave again, and Imogen doesn’t seem like she really fully blames him for Laudna being gone, so he’ll take what he can get.
When they do catch up with Laudna, and she bolts from them, and the first thing she says to Chetney is that she’ll kill Ashton if he gets close, the guilt surges in his chest again, rearing up from the dull pain it had settled to when they gathered this morning to a feeling akin to acid chewing through his heart.
As they turn to leave, to give Laudna space, the others’ voices filter through the trees behind them, fading as they head off.
“What did he do to you? Did he hurt you? Did he manipulate you? What if Ashton’s a bad person?”
And he’ll be honest with himself. He knows he’s not a great person. They know they’re not the picture of a hero. They know they’re stupid.
But hearing that Laudna thinks him capable of hurting Fearne, the way she thought them capable of kidnapping Imogen back in Bassuras, that cuts right to their core.
They just keep walking, even though they want nothing more than to turn around and say they didn’t mean to hurt anyone, to beg for forgiveness if that’s what it takes.
He goes and he sits on the lowest step of the stairs up to the castle and he presses his new, foreign, fucked up hand to the hard earth beneath him and thinks, for a second, that he’s felt something. And then it’s gone, slipped through their fingers like sand.
All of this for nothing. Even the soulmarks aren’t worth it, because his soulmates fucking hate him anyway.
He did all of this for fucking nothing.
“You absolute fuck-up,” they mutter to themself. “Maybe you deserve this. No one deserves anything but maybe you deserve this. Idiot. What do you even know?”
The others arrive a little while later. Laudna calls him a child and presents him with a doll, because dolls are for children, and that’s what he is, and his breath hitches and his vision blurs and if he wasn’t made of unyielding stone, if he could, he’d be crying, he’s sure of it.
“I'm so sorry. And… I will make my way through everybody, but… I promise, I am going to try my best not to be that person. I'm so tired of that person, and I… If I'm allowed to stay, and I will understand if I am not, I will never, ever forget that this was the first group of people that didn't make me leave, and I will work so hard to make sure you don't. I will never, no matter what happens, I won't leave if I'm allowed to stay. I will, no matter what we do, no matter what mistakes we make, no matter what we have, I will stay and I will be there and I will not… I will not walk away. I don't know what love is, I was made to be unlovable, but I'm going with this. I'm…”
“You don’t have to know what love is. Nobody does,,” FCG cuts him off.
“And you’re… you’re not unlovable, Ash,” Imogen adds, though she’s far more halting in saying so than the last time they had this conversation.
He wishes he knew if Fearne shared that opinion, now.
But, Ashton will take what he can get.
~*~*~
They go to the Feywild, and Ashton wishes they could feel as at home here as they did the last time. Right now, they’re still walking on eggshells, trying to figure out what they’re still allowed to do and what they aren’t. Mostly, they stick to the edge of the group, and adjust some spare fabric and leather that they pulled out of the hole to cover their new marks, and they wait to be told what to do. They’re done making decisions.
It’s Orym who comes for him first, in Nana Morri’s house, and Ashton thinks, for one wild second, that Orym’s been elected by the rest of the group to get rid of him for them, and he hesitates in following, but in the end, he goes, and he stands there with his head bowed and his hands fidgeting in front of him, like a child waiting to be chastised.
Laudna did say he was a child this morning. Maybe she was right.
Orym speaks softly, but his words carry so much weight, just like always. “I've just been thinking. It doesn't really serve to blurt the first thing that pops into your head out, I've learned in life. To be honest, Ash, I was as freaked out as everybody else by what happened. But that's not what I want to say to you right now. I just want you to feel what you're going to feel. Be angry, be sad, be confused, be questioning. Guilt, shame, whatever. But, we do care about you. I care about you. I know you keep telling us you’re unlovable, cause you’ve got no marks, and maybe that does mean something, but it doesn’t mean we can’t care about you. Got it?”
Ashton’s voice is harsh and raspy from speaking as little as possible after he blew up. “I think so. I’m trying. This is new territory for me. Being allowed to try to fix things.”
“Well, look, whatever you're going to feel, you know, we're all going through it. I get it. To a degree, I do. I listened to everybody lay into you yesterday and that's not what this is about. I care about you. With everything that's coming, you know, feel what you're going to feel, but also don't let perfect be the enemy of good. This group, as fucked as it is, this is it. There are no legends coming in to save us. It's just us. And we got to pick up and do. It’s going to be hard. But try not to spend all your time grappling with your demons, because I need your hands free so you can pick up that hammer and fight. And I'll stand shoulder to shoulder with you.”
“Y’know, earlier,” Ashton says, as all of that sinks in, a little in awe that after all of this, Orym still outright says he’d trust them to have his back in battle, “Chetney really gave me the option: Fuck right off or don't. His vote at the time was fuck right off. And, I don't know, I thought about it, and I thought about the last time everybody fucked right off and I didn't.”
“You’d never. You don’t have it in you.”
“I don’t.”
Orym sighs, and he hops up on a tree branch so he’s level with Ashton, and he grabs their face to make them look at him, all firm pressure because he knows that hurts the least and he’s Orym and he’s soft like that.
“For all you talk about being unlovable, and not caring, and no one…” He sighs again and shakes his head. “For all your stony exterior, you’ve got a soft heart, Ashton.”
He hesitates for so long, long enough that Orym releases him and he has time to watch a strange bioluminescent grub crawl from the tree Orym’s perched in, to a neighboring flower and get eaten by a larger bug disguised as one of the flower’s petals.
“I do really like these people,” he admits, and it takes his whole entire being to do so. Because he does. These are his soulmates, Orym is one of his soulmates, Fearne shares his red mark, Letters is his family, these people are everything he has wanted his whole life, and he could have lost that before he even realized he had it, and that thought is fucking terrifying. “I like them a lot. I mean, I don't really know what love really is, but… I don't know what family is.”
They fumble for more words, trying to convey what they mean, trying to get the depths of their emotions across. They’re trying, but they don’t know how to say it without letting the soulmate thing slide, and they don’t want to drop that now, because that feels manipulative, like trying to get back into their good graces by revealing this new connection, and they don’t want to be exactly what Laudna thought they could have been to Fearne with the shard.
Orym, bless him, doesn’t leave Ashton to flounder for long.
“Well I know one thing. You meant well. You mean well. Even if it all went sideways, even if there are pieces to pick up now, I know you mean well.”
And he springs forward into Ashton’s arms and kisses his forehead, and Ashton holds him like their life depends on it, and once again, feels like they’d be crying if they could.
~*~*~
Ashton’s unsure if this is as good of an idea as they thought as first. Yes, being more honest and open with each other is good, great even! But getting hurled off a cliff in an arcane bubble by Fearne’s Nana has left him shaky and unhappy as they come to a stop at the bottom of this unclimbable pit. They do not like falling.
And now they are stuck here, in this chasm that only listens to honesty, and they have to find this monocle and find their way out.
“I like eating silver more than copper!” FCG calls out, in the middle of discussing how this might work.
And that does it. It works. It gains them ground. So they’re going to have to spill some secrets then. That’s how this is going to work. Ashton doesn’t… love that. But they also don’t like being stuck in a chasm.
“I am genuinely scared to meet my mom again,” Imogen says, and soft as her voice is, the chasm hears her. More of the ruins push upwards.
Ashton tries to dig around for the monocle to be useful, instead of saying anything. They’ve been pretty much an open book about everything except the stuff they’ve really wanted to keep hidden, so they’re not really eager to share anything they haven’t already.
The only thing they find is a skull and some leeches. Okay. So maybe they’re on more of a timetable than they thought.
Laudna calls out next, “Deep down, Delilah and I both want the shard! Fearne should have it. But I don't know anymore what's my opinion or desires or feelings or hers.”
Imogen’s after that, through gritted teeth. “I love Laudna deeply, but I'm disgusted at the thought of Delilah looking at us all the time!”
“I'm super lonely all the time, especially at night. Doesn't matter if I'm bunking with one of you guys,” Orym says.
“Sometimes I pity some of you because you have beating hearts and opportunities, and you don't do enough with them,” FCG chimes in.
And then Orym again, “I've always laughed it off, but I guess I do kind of wonder if Chetney is my dad!”
And well, Ashton’s gotten them into this whole mess, really so they grit their teeth and get the fuck over themself a little and shout, “I am the reason that the Jiana Hexum robbery went fucking wrong, and the reason why I got thrown out of a fucking window.”
“All right, all right. While wood may be the superior material to metal, I do fear that with the dwindling interest in it, that children will find my toys and thereby myself obsolete every year that I grow older,” Chetney adds.
“So I think it's something buried deep down in my circuitry,” Letters says sheepishly, “but every time I hurt or kill something, it feels really good.”
“I know we're supposed to save the gods but I've tried talking to them my whole life and none of them will ever respond. I think I'm tainted. I don't know if I want to save gods that don't love me,” Imogen shouts, and it sounds so pained, it makes Ashton’s heart do something funny. They can relate to that.
“You know, we could all ripcord out of this at any moment. And I don't mean this scavenger hunt, I mean saving the world, right? And sometimes I fantasize about it all the time,” Laudna tacks on.
“Sometimes I-I-I do stuff to you guys while you're sleeping. Not like weird stuff. I just like to look at you closely and you know, just look at you. And maybe, like, twiddle your hair or like, braid it. I don't know, nothing bad. Nothing bad. You’re just my soulmates and I like being near you,” Fearne says, placating when a few of the others get a little alarmed at her phrasing.
“Fuck it. Oh god. Anytime it's too quiet, I start worrying that one of us, most of us are going to end up killing another one of us accidentally,” Ashton says, because he can’t let all the others pull all the weight.
Orym nods in agreement. “Truth, truth, truth. I have all the faith in the world in you guys, all of you. You’re all my soulmates and that means so much. And I have also spent time thinking how to neutralize each of you.”
Letters hems and haws for a second before finally saying, “I guess I can admit to you guys. I hope she's not listening, but I kind of worry that I put all my eggs in the Changebringer basket and she might betray us all. I had a really weird conversation with her and I think she's just out for herself and she might not really care about me, but what if she does and I'm saying horrible things? I'm sorry!”
“I was really disappointed in you for running away from your power, Fearne! You should take the shard,” Imogen shouts.
“I really miss Dorian, and sometimes I think that's okay, and sometimes I think it isn't, even though I know he’s my soulmate!” Orym admits, like it’s something he should be ashamed of.
And then Ashton blurts out, because he feels like they should all know, “I feel fucking worse that I just fucked up Fearne's life way more than mine and I should've died instead of that happening.” Because it’s true. It’d be better if he’d just died, him thinking he was unmarked and the Hells never having to worry about if and how they’re going to forgive him or get past how badly he’s fucked them all over, Fearne especially.
“All right, all right! I grew up in the Bramblewood outside of Westruun, and when I was a kid, I came back from learning how to make toys and found that my whole family had left. All they left behind were toys. They ran when Errevon the Rimelord was running across the plains, and so I'm kind of afraid of dragons, and I had five siblings: Alabaster, Pepper, Sugarplum, Hermey, and Chad. And I was so mad that they left, I never looked for any of them! And now I'm pretty sure they're dead, and I don’t share a soulmark with any of them so I don’t really have a way to be sure. So I think that any family I have is just going to look for a reason to leave me. That's why I don't get attached to anybody,” Chetney says, which is more than they’ve ever really learned about him in one go.
With each truth spoken, the ruins grow higher, and higher, and they’re all frantically scrambling to find the monocle and get the fuck out of there, the rain that started a bit ago is coming down harder and harder and it’s going to flood them out of here, Orym’s got the monocle, they just need a final push upward, they need something big and…
Fuck it. This is all Ashton’s fault anyway.
They don’t get to hide.
“You’re all my soulmates, and I don’t think I really deserve that!”
The ruins rise, and these strange eagle-like creatures come pluck them all out of the chasm, and deposit them once again on solid land, and all eyes are on Ashton.
“Well it seems you’ve succeeded then,” Nana Morri says, and she’s about to continue when Chetney interrupts.
“What the fuck was that!”
“I… I don’t…” Ashton’s eyes are wide and he feels like he can’t breathe and every single one of them is looking at him. “Later. Please. I promise I’ll… Let’s finish the rest of the exercises and then I promise, I swear we can… I’ll talk about it, just… later. Please. Please.”
By some miracle, they all acquiesce, though with no small amount of complaining and protesting. Ashton half thinks Chet might try to stab them with a chisel. But they’ve bought themself enough time to try to think of some way to explain themself. He’s got a little bit of time.
Later still comes too soon, and now Ashton’s shaking like a leaf, having fallen into a pit during that fucking communication challenge which only brought up bad memories, and having been set on edge hunting for doppelgangers, but now they’ve got no out, and they’re sitting in Nana Morri’s living room and everyone is looking at them so expectantly, and there is no avoiding this, as much as Ashton wants to melt into the floor and disappear forever.
FCG rolls up to them, and blessedly does not ask what they were expecting.
“Are you okay, Ashton?”
They shake their head, laughing quietly and a little hysterically. “No. Well, yes, in some ways, but definitely not in many others. I’ve got a lot to work through. One thing I’m thinking of, as the most recent spectacular fuck up is that it… it could have been anyone. Any of us could’ve been the one who made the wrong choice and did something stupid.”
“Well, not Orym. Orym’s just great,” Letters says.
“Orym’s got some internal shit. You know that.”
The halfling in question shrugs. “I don’t know if or when I would’ve shared everything I did, in any other circumstances. But I’m glad we did share. I have a bit of a better understanding now.” He punctuates his sentence with a pointed look at Ashton that they try desperately to ignore.
Imogen puts a hand on Orym’s shoulder. “If there’s anything any of us can do to make you less lonely, or to help out anyone…” She fixes Ashton with a matching look.
“I love you guys,” Orym says. “I’m glad you’re my soulmates. All of you.”
Ashton fixes his eyes on the floor, because it’s the only way he’s going to be able to say this and stay sane.
“I think trust might be a little better when it’s not easy. When it’s really earned. Think the only way we’re gonna be okay is cause we’re all in the same place of being capable of fucking up and maybe that’s good cause I can’t… no one else would tolerate that. No one else would put up with me. No one else has. And I am so fucking grateful.”
Orym ducks part of the way into his vision, but doesn’t push it when they won’t really meet his eyes. “I also think we shouldn’t wait for it to feel perfect. I don’t think it’s going to. Not soon at least. But that doesn’t make it not good. And we’ve got a lot to do. The world’s in disarray. We have to do something.”
Laudna agrees, and Imogen nods along with her and they spiral into a real discussion about their next course of action for a moment, because they really do have a lot to do, and Ashton’s not foolish enough to think this’ll actually spare him any questioning, but he lets the others steer the conversation and welcomes the extra time to collect his thoughts.
“Well I mean this whole thing is about trust,” Imogen’s saying when Nana leaves to go get them drinks and Ashton fully tunes back into the conversation. “How would y’all feel if I gave in, if we go up there?”
“What does that mean?” FCG asks.
“What does your gut tell you will happen?” Orym follows up.
Imogen shrugs, picking at the fraying hem of her shirt sleeve. “I don’t know. But I know I’ve got the right motive and the right people with me. I trust y’all to bring me back if anything goes wrong.” Her eyes flicker up to Ashton’s. Through sheer force of will, he doesn’t look away.
“Jump into that fucking lava. Find out who the fuck you are. That’s great.”
Letters pats her knee. “Just tell us before you do.”
“I’m not the doppelganger,” Imogen assures them all, with a little laugh.
“No, that’s Fearne.”
“Speaking of Fearne,” Laudna chimes in, “Are you going to take the shard?”
Fearne looks up from where she’s been styling Mister’s hair in increasingly strange designs. “I feel like I’ve been scared of something, that’s sort of inevitable, but not a bad thing? I think I kind of want it. I think I want to try. I… think I want to know something first.”
“What do you want to know?” Orym asks.
“What Ashton’s soulmarks look like.” She dismisses Mister back to wherever he goes when he’s not with them, and looks right at Ashton. “This shard. The titans, they were the Emperor and Empress. And if you’re half and that and I’m half of that… I want to know, before I do anything.”
Ashton stills.
This, perhaps, is the one he was most afraid of.
“I mean, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little curious too,” Imogen says, her fingers finding one of the little marks Laudna bears on her arm.
“Show me,” Fearne demands.
And Ashton did say he’d do anything to start making this up to her. He removes the makeshift little wrapping that he had covered his arm with and he holds it out to her.
She runs her fingers over the mark for the Hells, over the little hourglass he’s finally realized is for him, and over the mark for his little fucked up family, half of them waiting in Jrusar for him and Letters to return, and she stops at the red flame encased in crystal.
“This is mine. You’re mine. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you tell any of us?” Chetney cuts in.
“I didn’t know.” And fuck, Ashton’s never sounded so small in his life. “I didn’t know till after I… till after the shard.”
“And you still didn’t tell me,” Fearne says.
“In the middle of all of this? What was I gonna say? ‘Hey, sorry I just fucked you all over on a cosmically bad level, but wanna give me some attention? I’m your soulmate!’ Come on. Besides, I didn’t want anyone to feel like I was manipulating them, or trying to manipulate them into forgiving me.”
“I’m not forgiving you! I don’t forgive you! I’m angry!”
“You should be,” Ashton replies. Their eyes are fixed on where Fearne is still holding their arm. They can’t quite feel her touch, not on the lava rock, but they can feel the pressure of her grip, and they don’t hate it. There’s something about her, the warmth she emanates… they don’t hate it. They really don’t hate it.
“I’m angry about the shard, and I’m angry about this! You should have told us! You should have told me!”
“I’m sorry.” It’s all Ashton can muster. She deserves more, but they can’t think of words that are good enough for all he owes her right now.
So instead, he grabs her wrist and squeezes, as gentle as his rough stone skin will allow, and he just holds her there, hoping to convey even a fraction of all of the emotion he feels.
“You better be sorry,” Fearne whispers, after letting him sit in silence for a while. “I could’ve lost you before I even knew you belonged to me.”
And Ashton has always hated being referred to possessively, has ever since Hexum stole them and indentured them to her and made their life mildly miserable for years, but the way Fearne says that…
Ashton doesn’t mind being hers. He doesn’t mind being theirs . He wants to belong to the Hells. This is the feeling that he’s been craving for so long. It doesn’t feel restrictive, when she says it like that. It doesn’t feel slimy. It feels welcoming and as warm as the fire that simmers under Fearne’s skin.
“I’m going to take the shard,” Fearne says, and Ashton’s hand convulses around her wrist. Fearne swats his hand with her corrupted on, long nails scratching into his stone skin. “I’m going to take the shard because I want to. Not because you’re my soulmate, and not because everyone else wants me to. Not because of anything else. And after I do it, it doesn’t mean anything.”
Ashton pulls his hands away from her, only to find that she’s kept a grip on his lava rock arm, pressure he can only just feel looped around his wrist. She traces the little red image that marks him as hers.
“That’s okay,” he says, because it is. It’s her choice. “I know I’m not… I’ve got a lot to make up for.”
“Soulmarks are so serious on the Material Plane,” she huffs, sitting back on her heels and then standing up. “You’re still mine. It just doesn’t mean anything. Yet. Come on, Empress. Let’s go meet the Emperor.”
She does not extend a hand to help them out of their seat, and they do not reach out for her, but she waits for them before herding the others up to the roof so they don’t set Nana Morri’s house on fire. She lets him go first, and he feels her hand slip into his back pocket, alleviating him of something likely mildly valuable.
He doesn’t say anything.
Ashton smiles, and joins the others on the roof, finally losing some of the tension in their shoulders.
If Fearne’s playing their game again, he’s got a chance. He can make this right.
He breathes out, watching the others get ready to hook Fearne up to the harness, getting ready to help her take the shard, asking for his advice on what happened, how it hurt him.
They’re not making him leave.
He breathes in.
Maybe he’s not unloveable after all.