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Gaspard was eerily silent. With House Rowe's recent alliance with the Rogue Imperialists and how close the war was to their doorstep, an evacuation had been ordered. Not a single living soul remained in the town, all having fled east for safety. There was no telling when any of them would be allowed to return to their homes. The town was empty as a result. Empty save for one -- or maybe two.
Ashe pulled his coat tighter around him as he walked, breath coming out in puffs of white. Winter was upon them, and the air had turned bitter cold. It was dangerous for someone in his condition to be walking about in this weather at this time of night, damn the war. Right now, he didn't care. There was somewhere he needed to go.
As he walked, a conversation replayed in his mind. Concerns voiced, an initial congratulations, fears and worries made evident, and options given: See it through, or put an end to it. That had been a couple of months ago, and Ashe was no closer to deciding what to do. He'd written letter after letter after letter to Felix, desperate for him to respond, but no response came. Rationally, he knew the war was keeping him busy, never mind the fact that the man didn't write many letters himself. It was all he could do to cling to that rational thought before it could lose out to the traitorous voice telling him he was being ignored.
No. Felix could be brusque, but never once had he ignored Ashe. Something had to be keeping him from responding. He couldn't allow himself to spiral thinking otherwise. He just hoped that that something wasn't death.
He adjusted his coat again and his hand brushed against his stomach. He bit back a gasp. He might never get used to that. Besides, it wouldn't be much longer until the coat could no longer cover him.
Stop thinking about it, Ashe. It won't help. He focused his attention on the snow crunching underfoot. Would it be so bad if he mis-stepped onto ice and slid? A hard landing in the wrong way would do the trick, take the choice out of his hands. He could claim it was an accident. It was dark, hard to see. It was plausible.
Goddess, what was he thinking!? He shook his head, then brought his attention back up and stopped. There it was. The exterior was derelict from disuse and the sign had gone missing years ago, but he would know this building anywhere.
Ubert Inn. His parents' restaurant.
Home.
He raced for the doors and his hand reached into a pocket for his lockpick set. He no longer had the key, but it hardly mattered. Despite the years untouched, the lock was easy, and once he heard the telltale click, he pushed the doors open.
It was just as he remembered it. The bar top extended in front of him, the fireplace off to the left, chairs stacked on top of tables that haven't moved an inch since the day the doors closed. If Ashe didn't know better, he'd swear the place had only just closed for the night, waiting to receive customers in the morning. He could almost hear his dad's voice yelling for him and his siblings to get ready for bed.
He sniffed. He missed this place so much.
He slowly navigated his way through the tables, careful not to bump his stomach into anything. He stopped at the fireplace, long gone cold, and ran a hand on top of the couch placed in front. He loved this spot as a child. It was probably his favourite spot in the entire building.
"I'm not surprised you like the fireplace so much," Marc says, then leans down to ruffle Ashe's hair, reflecting gold in the light from the fire. "You know, this was where I first met you and your mother."
Ashe stares up at him starry-eyed. "Really?"
Marc nods.
"Can you tell me?" Ashe bounces on his toes, excited.
"Of course, kiddo. In fact, go get Erin and Seamus. I'm sure they'd want to hear the story too."
"Okay!"
That was so long ago. He remembered the story like he'd just been told it yesterday. A woman in tattered clothes carrying an infant had walked into the inn to escape the cold. She was a traveller, had no gold, but the innkeeper made hot chocolate and milk for her and her baby. She said things had been rough for them, but she was determined for a fresh start. At the time, she hadn't yet realised her fresh start had begun in this very spot.
The innkeeper was his dad. The traveller was his mom. The baby was himself.
Not for the first time, Ashe wondered what it was that made his mom come here with him in tow. He could theorise as much as he liked, but it left him with no solid answers. Felix promised he'd help him look into it -- maybe that's what was keeping him, perhaps he was looking through records that only his family could attain access to. Certainly a better thought than the alternative.
His gaze drew over to the stairs at the back wall that led to the upper floor. They still looked sturdy. He padded over, then cautiously tested the first few steps. They seemed to hold his weight. He idly wondered how long they would. His mom had managed it before, but the stairs hadn't been used in eleven years. Had it really been that long...? Still, there was no evidence of creaking or sinking in the wood. With a firm grip on the railing, he climbed his way up.
At the top of the stairs, the corridor split. The guest rooms went to the right, but there was no reason to go there. Instead, he turned left and continued to the living space he and his family once inhabited. It wasn't much -- merely a common room, a washroom, and two bedrooms. His classmates from the academy might've called it sparse at best. But that was how he lived back then. They were only commoners, used most of their money to keep the inn running, but they wanted for nothing. There wasn't even a need for an upstairs kitchen, what with the restaurant downstairs.
"And that's how you season trout."
Ashe stares at the meal his dad has prepared. It is a simple meal, grilled trout, but he knows it to be a tasty meal. He looks up at his dad. "Does it taste bad without seasoning?"
"Not necessarily, no," Marc answers, "but it does make it taste better, gives it extra flavour. Flavour is king, after all."
"Ooohhhh," the child coos with wonder, then bites his lip as he watches his dad arrange the food on the plate. "Does it have to look like that?" It no longer resembles the basic fish it once was, but has been sliced and chopped with pieces of vegetables added.
Marc chuckles. "It depends. When you run an inn with a kitchen, you find that arranging the food on the plate in the right way can make any meal pleasing to the eye." He lightly taps a finger on the tip of Ashe's nose. "If flavour is king, then appearance is the royal court!"
He missed his dad.
There were so many memories in this place. As he meandered through the living space, he couldn't help but wonder what memories it was robbed of when his parents died. Would he have taken over the inn when the time was right? Would it have hosted any weddings? Would his parents be greeted with grandchildren?
He shook his head. That was a thought he couldn't think about right now. He ventured deeper until he found himself outside of his parents' room. It wasn't a room he'd been in much; there had been little reason to go in there. He wasn't sure what drew him to that room, but he gently pushed the door open. It was largely the same as it had always been, save for the sheets having holes that looked new. Rodents, likely.
Ashe looked around, finding nothing of real import, until his eyes landed on a trunk in the corner of the room. He remembered that trunk. It belonged to his mom. He was never sure what she kept in there. Clothes, maybe. Maybe there's still some old mater-- Do not finish that thought, Ashe.
Pushing the unbidden thoughts aside, he moved toward the trunk, then carefully knelt down in front of it. It was locked, but the lock wasn't complex. I hope you don't mind, Mom. He produced his lockpick set again and set to work. A moment later, the lock clicked, and the trunk lid popped open. Pushing the lid back, he saw an assortment of items that didn't strike him as unusual beyond the fact that they were in a trunk. Sentimental value, perhaps? After all, his mom was once a stranger in a strange land. Perhaps these ordinary items marked milestones for her as she adjusted to life in Faerghus.
Something about the inside of the space was off. There seemed to be less space inside than the trunk size implied. The mind of a thief was a hard one to disregard, and it was telling him there was a false bottom. Curiosity piqued, he felt around the inside ends of the trunk until his fingers caught a dip. He set his fingers in, then pulled the false bottom out of the trunk, revealing a book and some old clothes.
He set the false bottom tray down and removed the book, running a hand over its surface. He recognised this book.
No, it was no mere book. It was a tome.
Ashe and his mom are out gathering firewood. They have plenty now, but they have some extra time. His mom chooses this time to teach him something. She pulls something out of her bag. It looks like a book. It's purple and has diamonds on the front.
"What's that, Mommy?"
Morgan smiles at her son. "This is a special book called a tome. Do you know what tomes do?" Ashe shakes his head. "Well," she starts, "tomes can cast spells."
"Like magic?" Ashe asks. He knows his mom can use magic, has seen her use it, but he doesn't remember seeing any sort of magic book in her hands when she does it.
Morgan hums and nods. "And today, I'm going to teach you how to cast one."
Ashe's eyes widen. "Really?"
"Mmhm." She opens the tome to a random page, then places it in the boy's tiny hands, keeping her own nearby in case the weight is too much. "The spell this tome contains is called Flux. It's- a dark spell from my homeland."
Dark magic? He's heard stories. They all say dark magic is scary. He starts to squirm a little. "Mommy, are you sure this is a good idea?"
"Probably not," Morgan acquiesces, "but bad people exist in the world, and they can and will harm you if they get the chance. If something happens to me or your dad, or if someone attacks you, I want you to be able to defend yourself and your siblings."
Ashe thinks this over. He doesn't want his family getting hurt. He wants to protect them. This magic book can help. He looks up at his mom with a determination that only a six-year-old can muster. "Okay. I want to learn."
That had been the first time he'd cast Flux, clumsily flinging the spell at a nearby tree. His mom said he had the aptitude for it, but it had disoriented him when it turned his vision red. It took him a while to get used to that and further determine that it was a side effect of using dark magic. Nosebleeds from stronger dark spells were another side effect that he had yet to figure out how to mitigate.
His mom was only able to teach the spell to him. Maybe he could teach it to Erin and Seamus since she couldn't.
The tome wasn't as heavy as he thought it was, but then again, he was older now. This didn't constitute as weighty anymore. He set the tome on the floor, then began pulling out the articles of clothing. It seemed to be a single outfit. A pair of scuffed brown leather boots, brown bracers with matching gloves, a shirt and pair of trousers that were worn in, a piece of clothing that he assumed attached at the waist with the most confusing belts he'd ever seen in his life, a small jacket with a rather high collar. Who wore clothes like these? Apparently his mom, once upon a time.
The last article he pulled out was a long black overcoat, and there was no doubt this was the most worn and torn piece of clothing in this ensemble. The ends of the coat had remnants of grass and dirt stains, the hood seemed to be more stretched out than it should've been, the gold cuffs were fraying, even the sleeves were tearing off at the shoulders and--
Wait. He squinted his eyes in the darkness. His time on the streets forced him to learn how to pick out patterns in the dark. He could make out something on the sleeves. Were those... eyes?
Like the birthmark on his hand. The birthmark his mom told him to keep covered.
All the air seemed to escape him. Was this what she was wearing when she came here? These were so torn up, surely she had packed more clothes than this. That is... unless this was all she had. As if... she left in a hurry.
His throat clenched. His mom was tight-lipped about her origins and past. She made sure Ashe didn't show or talk about his birthmark. She said they'd be nobodies, living happy and peaceful lives. She taught him a spell to keep himself safe. And here, in his hands, clothes from a foreign land -- her clothes -- shoved deep into a trunk and left to be forgotten.
His dad was right. She was a runaway.
"I guess Felix was right, too," Ashe said aloud to no one, voice cracking. Tears began to spill. "You were protecting me...!"
Everything he'd been keeping bottled up since he got the news came tumbling out in body-wracking sobs, his face buried in the coat. He didn't know what these clothes meant to her, but to him, in a single moment, they went from merely tattered clothing to the most important outfit in the world. The outfit of the bravest woman he ever knew.
And in that moment, he was not the commander of Gaspard's knight battalions and archer corps. He was not lord of House Gaspard in all but name. He was not a former student of Garreg Mach's Officer's Academy. He wasn't even a former thief who lived on the streets for the better part of two years.
Right now, he was an eighteen-year-old boy in a world of trouble. And he needed help.
"What do I do...!?" he cried, voice muffled. "I-I can't bring a baby into this world...! N-not like this...! Not right now...! I-I can't-- I can't--!" He hiccupped, fresh choking sobs taking away any ability to speak coherently.
This was why he needed Felix to answer his letters. He couldn't make a decision like this on his own. Goddess, what would Felix think? How would he react? Would he be happy? Angry? Would he abandon Ashe? Ashe wasn't sure he wanted to know anymore. He wasn't even sure how he'd tell him. They never discussed children. They were far too young for that, and now their inability to be careful has come with consequences that demanded something be done about it, one way or another.
Ashe could not afford to have a child, not with this goddessdamn war happening. It was too dangerous, and all of Fódlan -- those who resisted the Rogues -- needed him in this war. But could he even bring himself to terminate? What if he regretted it? Then again, what if he kept the child and regretted that? Was he going to hate the choice no matter which it was?
Goddess, he hated this. He didn't want to have to choose. If only his mom were here. Surely she'd know what to do in Felix's absence. But therein lay the problem: she wasn't here to provide the help her son so desperately needed, and no amount of wishing and praying would bring her back.
"Please..." he begged, breath hitching, "please tell me what to do... I-I can't do this by myself..."
After what felt like an eternity, the sobbing died down into hiccups, and Ashe wiped his eyes on his sleeve. His gaze caught the grass stains again and a realisation began to dawn on him. His mom didn't have help getting here. She was on her own and had to look after a baby all by herself. While the circumstances remained unknown to him, he knew that her actions took tremendous strength on her part. Maybe... maybe that was what he needed. The strength to make this choice alone.
He took another look at the clothes in their rough shape. They looked like they would fit Felix better than his mom. With a little bit of tailoring, maybe they'd fit him, too. Either way, the clothes could be fixed up good as new -- and say, didn't one of the squires mention something about working in a tannery in County Duval? Maybe they might know how to shine up the boots.
That settled it. He shut the trunk, then gathered the clothes and tome in his arms before coming to his feet. If he was going to do this, he needed his mother's strength. Bringing a small part of her with him certainly wouldn't hurt. Carefully, he carried the items downstairs and cast one last look about the place. He hoped one day he could come back, and it would be a home again. He stepped out the door and shut it behind him, then began the long trek back to Castle Gaspard with renewed purpose. After all, he had a difficult choice ahead of him now and a lot to think about.
Though perhaps his mind was already made up.