Chapter Text
Ashe is starting to wonder if they’re ever going to reach Garreg Mach.
They’ve been on the road for a while, now, him and a handful of Lonato’s finest men. They cut a slow, ambling pace through the woods, mindful of the path underfoot. Magdred Way is treacherous this time of year, and it really is better that they move slowly—not that Ashe is convinced they’re moving at all.
Since yesterday, the scenery hasn’t changed; it’s all the same unyielding forest, gnarled and overgrown, fog so thick it seems to cling to his skin with every step. It sits damp and heavy in the air, muffling all sounds and sights of the living world. Maybe they’re just going in circles? Goddess, he hopes not. It was nice of the knights to offer to escort him to the monastery, he wouldn’t want them to get stuck in the middle of nowhere for his sake—
“Stop that,” says a cheerful, familiar voice.
To his credit, Ashe doesn’t startle. He does take a moment to make sure that the rest of his companions are safely out of earshot before he asks under his breath, lips parted in a bare smile, “Stop what?”
“I can hear you overthinking from here, little man,” the voice snickers. “You’ve got to stop. It’s just a little extra walking. It’ll be fine.”
Ashe catches the flash of a faint grin out of the corner of his eye, a lazy slash of white against the shifting mist. When he blinks, it’s gone again.
“That’s easy for you to say,” he protests. “You don’t even have to walk!”
There’s a soft laugh and a softer breeze, just cold enough to make him shiver. It’s a bit hard to see through the fog—there, the silhouette of a man floating next to him, tall and translucent and decked in the colors of House Gaspard. Even faded, the eyes that look down at him still sparkle, slate-blue like the quiet sky above.
“Even if I did, I’d say the same thing,” Christophe tells him. “I don’t have to remind you, do I? Father’s knights love you, Ashe. You’re going away for a year, and they’re here to make sure you get there in one piece. They really don’t mind.”
Ashe shrugs a little. “But I feel bad,” he offers, kicking a pebble off the path and watching it skitter into the grass.
Christophe shrugs back, harder. “But why? You shouldn’t.”
Ashe makes a face and pulls his shoulders up to his ears. “But I do!”
Christophe opens his mouth to deliver his next blistering comeback—but then he yelps, the shape of him flickering in the fog, and then the cook’s son is standing there instead, two outlines overlapping like a single image falling out of focus.
Samuel, fully unaware, wraps his traveling furs around him and shivers. Ashe winces in sympathy.
“Bit chilly today, isn’t it?” he says, shooting Ashe a rueful smile. “But we’re making good time. Should be arriving at Garreg Mach before midday.”
Christophe is, for want of a better word, sulking. “He just walked through me!”
That’s what you get for being dead, Ashe thinks, two seconds before he feels bad for being mean and three seconds before he remembers that this is Christophe, so it’s fine.
“Thank you, Samuel,” he says instead, earnest as anything. He shifts the weight of the pack on his back and raises his voice just enough to carry to the rest of the knights ahead. “Really, thank you all for coming along! You didn’t have to do all this for me.”
“And send Lord Lonato’s son off to school without a proper escort?” One of the knights shakes her head, pale ponytail bobbing behind her. “Don’t be silly, Ashe. It’ll make him feel better to know that we saw you safely there. It gives me peace of mind, at least.”
“What did I tell you?” says Christophe.
“I’m still grateful,” he insists. “I don’t think I would have wanted to make this trip on my own.”
Samuel laughs; it’s pleasant and loud, a bright belly-laugh that gets swallowed up by the mist. The soft dimples in his cheeks remind Ashe of the castle kitchens, the smell of fresh jam and baking bread, nights spent giggling and covered in flour in front of the hearth. “You’ve never been far from Gaspard territory, have you?” he says. It’s more of a statement than a question. “I wager it wouldn’t be very kind of us to send you on your way without any help.”
“Not that you wouldn’t have had help,” Christophe chimes in.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Ashe says, to everyone present and no one in particular.
Samuel claps him heartily on the back. “So, are you excited, Ashe?” he asks, gesturing in what is ostensibly the direction of the monastery. The fog hasn’t quite lifted, but the trunks of the trees around them are starting to grow more pronounced, and if Ashe squints, he can almost believe they’re starting to thin out a little. “I always knew you wanted to be a knight, but I have to say, I didn’t think you’d want to go to Garreg Mach. What with the twins staying home, and all.”
“We’d have been happy to train you back at Castle Gaspard,” one of the knights adds, faintly wistful. Ashe tucks away a smile at the words left unsaid.
“I’ll only be gone for the year,” he assures them. “Gaspard is my home, but it’s all I know. If I’m going to become a knight, I should learn a little more about the world first, shouldn’t I? Besides, Cole and Violet have all of you and Lonato to look after them—”
“And Socks,” Christophe cuts in. “That cat is worth a hundred knights, you know.”
“—I’m sure I’ll miss them terribly, but I’m not worried. So you shouldn’t worry too much about me, either,” he finishes firmly.
Samuel grins at him, toothy and true.
“You’ve become a fine young man, Ashe,” he says, unbearably nostalgic for someone who just turned eighteen last week. “Steady with a bow, good head on your shoulders… I think Christophe would be proud.”
“I think Christophe would be proud, too,” says Christophe.
Ashe turns his head just far enough to look unimpressed. This did not work when Christophe was alive, and it certainly isn't working now.
Out loud, he muses, “You really think so?”
“Of course!” Samuel exclaims.
“…oh, quit it,” Ashe says to both of them, but mostly to his brother, who is doubled over laughing in midair and taking full advantage of the fact that he no longer needs to waste time on things like breathing.
Ahead, the fog is beginning to lift. As the sun crests the horizon, the mist burns away, unveiling every living thing hidden underneath. It’s a deceptively quick end to a whole day and night of hard travel—every thirty paces or so, the trees thin out, until they’re left standing in a vast, grassy field at the foot of the Oghma Mountains, the sky above streaked in dusty peach and faded gold, burning and boundless.
Ashe, standing in the lingering shade of a tall pine tree, pauses, struck still by the sight. One of the knights turns around, smiles fondly when he notices the look on his face. “It’s really something, isn’t it?”
“It’s way up there, tucked away in the mountains,” Christophe murmurs. When Ashe squints, he can make out the distant shape of towers peeking over the hills. “Ah, Garreg Mach. Brings back memories.”
For an instant, Christophe’s shape stutters, blurs at the edges; the smell of blood comes down like a heavy curtain, sharp and bitter, the air around him warped into a shimmering, hazy static. Fear surges through Ashe’s body at the sight, ancient and visceral. He breathes in, lets it settle. Greets it like an old friend.
“Well, that’s the point,” he whispers back, and the static fades, leaving only one rattled ghost in its wake.
Christophe sucks in a deep, shuddering breath and squeezes Ashe’s shoulder. He doesn’t say anything else. His touch bears no weight, not anymore—still, the chill is deep and comforting, the only familiar thing in a world bright to bursting.
Christophe Gaspard is, of course, dead. Everybody knows this. He died four years ago, executed by the Church of Seiros for his involvement in the Tragedy of Duscur. But Christophe doesn’t remember being involved in the Tragedy of Duscur; Christophe doesn’t remember much of anything at all.
Christophe Gaspard has a little brother, and Christophe’s little brother loved him when he was alive and loves him now that he’s not. Christophe’s little brother is special. Christophe’s little brother has learned to pay attention to all of the things other people miss.
Christophe’s little brother believes that the Church is telling a lie, that his death has been made into something left undone, and Ashe has never been one to let these things go forgotten.
“We’ll figure it out,” Ashe says, pitched low and fervent in his throat. “We’ll make it right,” he says, louder, barely sparing a second before he takes off after the knights, heels skidding on the grassy slope down into the valley.
“I know, beansprout,” says Christophe, light and fond, warm as a beating heart. “I know.”
It takes longer than Ashe expects to cross the valley. By the time they reach the base of the mountains, the sun is already cast high overhead, leaving him sweating in his furs.
“This is where we take our leave, kiddo,” one of the knights says, patting the large, well-kept stone archway that gates the path leading up to the monastery. “You’ll be alright on your own?”
“I’ll be fine,” Ashe promises, standing up a little straighter and trying very hard to look like someone who will be alright on his own. Samuel considers this before pulling him into a bone-crushing hug.
“Don’t get into too much trouble without me,” he says, with a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sniffle.
“I’ll try!” Ashe squeezes back, breathing in sweat and smoke and suddenly feeling very, very homesick. “Listen, when you get back, tell your parents I said hello. And don’t let Vi bully you into giving her extra pastries—not even if she pretends to cry about it! Unless she doesn’t get over it in ten minutes, that’s how you know something’s wrong. Oh, and make sure Cole remembers to feed his sourdough, he’s been keeping it in that pantry you guys don’t use but he always forgets it’s there until he wants to bake—”
“Ashe.” Samuel cuts him off with a laugh and rubs at his eyes, color high in his cheeks. “It’s okay. We’ll take care of your siblings. You said it yourself—you don’t have to worry about a thing. Make Gaspard proud, you hear?”
Ashe squeezes his eyes shut for just a second, then resurfaces with a broad, heartfelt smile. “Travel safely, Sam. We’ll see each other again soon.”
He’s been standing by the archway for longer than strictly necessary, watching their backs shrink into the distance, when Christophe elbows him and says, “You miss them already, huh.”
“No,” says Ashe, automatic and without heat.
“Stop worrying,” Christophe tells him. “They’ll be alright.”
Ashe turns to face the path to the monastery, steps curling up and up and around the mountain, like the path of an enormous snake cut into the stone. “Let’s go.”
After days of fumbling along uneven ground in the fog, this climb isn’t so bad. The slope is gentle enough for even a child to manage the trek on foot. Ashe sheds his traveling furs in favor of the lighter hooded shirt underneath, and Christophe regales him with stories of his time at the academy.
Once in a while, other ghosts tailing other travelers approach him, asking for his help with little things. Finding a lost earring, directions to town. Some do not seem to realize that they are dead. Most look about the same as they must have when they were alive, normal townspeople going about their day, telltale desaturated colors shivering in the breeze.
Ashe is used to this. He stops to honor every request, as long as it seems like something he can take care of quickly. Many are content just to know that he’s listening, and fade off into the breeze with little more than a story and a sigh.
One or two, distressed at their newfound incorporeality, come to him screaming and crying, clutching at his sleeves with slick, bloody hands that leave no mark on his clothes—he does his level best not to flinch. A child sobs from blank white sockets with part of his skull caved in, crimson oozing sluggish from the wound. A woman coughs and the sound rattles horribly between her cries for help, bruises blooming like a garland of violets around her throat.
These, too, are familiar, no matter how much he wishes they weren’t. Death is vicious, sometimes. No matter how many he meets, there’s a flickering fear in him that never really seems to go away.
But Ashe treats them with patience. They just need someone to listen, he reminds himself, taking deep, steadying breaths. They’re only scary because they’re scared. He holds their hands, ignores the deep-winter chill it buries in his bones, says kind and gentle things until they’ve calmed down enough that the gruesome evidence of their death fades away once more.
“I’m so sorry for troubling you,” the woman says, her neck pale and unmarred above the plain cut of her collar. Her eyes are wide and green, a couple shades darker than Ashe’s own. “I just… my husband… I was married off into a minor lord’s family, you know. Kind man. Good man. Thought I was the luckiest woman in the world! But after our third Crestless son, he… he…” Her outline flickers, and for a moment, her throat is necklaced in bruises once more, reddish-purple and shaped sickeningly like fingers.
“Shh,” he says. A deep and familiar sadness nestles itself at the base of his ribcage. “You’re safe now. He can’t hurt either of you anymore.”
Eventually, the trail flattens out, splitting into several diverging paths throughout the town at the base of the monastery; Ashe catalogues them out of habit, taking note of each useful shop and hidden back alley on the way to the gate. Between this and his acts of community service, it’s already late afternoon by the time he reaches the outer wall of Garreg Mach. There’s a small crowd of what looks to be students and their escorts gathered at the back of the marketplace.
“Greetings, new student! Welcome to Garreg Mach,” the gatekeeper says. “Are you here to check in?”
“I am!” Ashe fumbles for his papers.
Check-in goes smoothly, barring Christophe’s heckling (“Goddess, why’d you let Father sign you up as Ubert? You could’ve taken your mom’s name like the twins, Ashe, Duran sounds so much cooler—”), and soon enough Ashe finds himself standing in the doorway of an empty room with a key in one hand and an Officer’s Academy uniform bundled up in the other.
“Wait a minute,” says Christophe. He walks into the room ahead of Ashe, steps skimming over faded blue carpet, leaving the dust there undisturbed. “This room looks—familiar. Was this… mine?”
Ashe swallows down the feeling that rattles in his chest at the thought. The key grows heavy in his hand. “Do you think so?” he starts, but Christophe is presently occupied with sticking his head through the wall, so he closes his mouth and waits for him to be done.
“Never mind,” his brother says, chipper as ever, though Ashe knows him well enough to know that this is little more than a hasty cover for disappointment. Christophe pulls his head back into Ashe’s room and shrugs. “All the dorms look the same.”
Ashe sighs and flops onto the bed, not bothering to shut the door behind him. “You can’t just peek into other people’s rooms, Christophe,” he admonishes. “It’s not nice.”
Christophe takes a seat next to him, tucking his long legs away so that Ashe doesn’t accidentally reach through them. “Oh, relax, sprout. Your neighbor’s not even here yet.” He sticks a hand through Ashe’s rucksack, wiggling his fingers above his face. “Shouldn’t you get unpacking?”
There’s not much to unpack. Ashe travels light, and most of his belongings pull double duty between service and sentiment, like his favorite quill and the set of wooden spoons that Samuel gifted him for his sixteenth birthday. He sets the spoons on his side table and the quill on his desk. After a moment’s thought, he decides to set a stack of fresh paper there, too, so he won’t forget to write home once classes begin.
His new uniform turns out to be a little too big, so he shrugs the jacket on over his hoodie and calls it a day. The pants are a lost cause; he abandons them in favor of his leggings with a shrug. He’ll hem them later.
Ashe is setting a thick stack of books—his favorite installments in the Loog cycle—on the chair he’s pulled up next to his bed when he hears a rough, jeering voice, right outside his door:
“Say, you’re that dog from the palace in Fhirdiad, aren’t you?”
Christophe sighs at the way Ashe instantly goes alert, watching his open doorway with guarded curiosity. His poker face is good, but Christophe knows him better. “You gonna listen in?” Ashe tosses him a sheepish smile. “Yeah, yeah. Get going, I’m right behind you.”
Ashe plants himself just shy of his doorframe and takes stock of the situation. A leather bag, open, its contents spilling onto the ground. Multiple planters tucked next to the wall. Three students dressed in Faerghus blue, all with their backs to him. One student, taller than Christophe and clad in servant’s blacks, meeting every insult with a face wiped carefully blank.
Four ghosts, silent, all with faded dark skin and sad, sad eyes.
Ashe blinks, a painful pressure in his throat. He forces the feeling down. He’s had more than his fair share of meeting dead family members. The stranger’s parents look young, both with faces clearly made for smiling, and the littlest one can’t be more than six years old.
“—not gonna say anything, huh? Don’t know how to speak for yourself? Don't know what to do without your—”
“Excuse me!” Ashe calls, sunny and sweet. Three heads whip around to face him in tandem, one fist frozen in mid-air, ready to strike. To someone less accustomed to fear, it might have even been scary. “You’re really causing a scene, you know.”
Then, to the stranger and his family: “Do you know these people?”
The boy shakes his head. “I do not,” he says, tone as carefully muted as his expression. His eyes have gone from distant to sharp in the span of a single blink.
“Listen, man,” one of the students says, clearly knocked off-balance. Ashe, small and fair with spring freckles dusted across the bridge of his nose, looks every inch the part of a pure-blooded citizen of Faerghus.
He keeps the smile tacked onto his face as he plants his body firmly between the stranger and his would-be assailants. “Sure! I’m listening.”
“Uh…” The student’s voice turns light, cajoling. “It’s just, he’s from Duscur, you know? Real funny guy. We’re just—welcoming him. Making sure he knows his place. You know how it is.”
Guileless as ever, Ashe cocks his head and says, “I don’t think I do, actually.”
There’s an uncomfortable, weighty silence. One of the ghosts standing behind the boy—his sister, maybe?—snickers into her sleeve.
“Forget it,” another one of the students mutters, yanking on her friends’ arms as she storms away. “This isn’t worth our time.”
Ashe waits for them to move out of earshot before he kneels down to pick up one of the books that’s fallen out of the bag on the ground. “Are you okay?” he asks, looking up.
Oh. He’s just… standing there. Staring.
Ashe flushes slightly under a pair of watchful eyes. Christophe snorts.
“Ah—yes, I’m alright,” the stranger says, blinking. “I apologize for the trouble.”
“Stupid! Stop apologizing!” his sister hollers from behind him, a terrible scowl plastered across her face. “You don’t even know this guy. If one milk-bread Faerghus boy wants to play hero against three pale-ass Faerghus bitches, that’s on him!”
The ghost who is presumably their mother reaches over to box her ears, her smile not moving an inch. Ashe shudders. Scary. “Sana, stop it. He’s being nice.”
“But Ma,” she complains, ducking away on nimble feet. “You know what Faerghans are like. Aside from the princeling, anyway. And the kid can’t even hear us, so it doesn’t matter.” Christophe laughs out loud at that one.
Sana turns her glare on him. “What’s so funny?” she demands.
“Nothing,” he says. “Eyes up, little man. He’s waiting for you to say something.”
Ashe startles.
“Hm? Oh, no, no. It’s no trouble at all,” he says, and puts the book carefully back in the bag. “I’m sorry that people are treating you like this. They don’t even know you. You deserve better.”
The boy considers this. “It is not unfamiliar treatment,” he finally says, measured and mild, stooping to help Ashe collect his books off the ground. “But I am grateful to you for stepping in.”
“Any time.” Ashe extends a hand, beaming. “Oh, I’m Ashe, by the way! It looks like I’m your new next-door neighbor?”
(“Never mind, I take it back,” Sana says to Christophe. “Gods. It’s like looking straight at the sun. Is he always like this?”)
“Dedue,” says the boy who is not really a stranger, now. His hand dwarfs Ashe’s in comparison, palm rough but warm. “It’s nice to meet you, Ashe.”
“Let me help you bring this inside,” Ashe offers. He straightens up and dusts off his knees. “I mean, if that’s okay!”
Dedue seems to give the idea some genuine thought before he shakes his head. “No, thank you,” he says politely. “I appreciate the offer, but I am capable of handling this from here.”
“Dumbass,” Sana says, tired. It reads like an endearment.
Ashe nods. “I’ll see you at dinner, then?”
The corners of Dedue’s eyes crinkle very slightly. “Indeed. Enjoy your afternoon,” he says, gathering up the remainder of his belongings under one arm and swinging his door shut.
The rest of the ghosts—his father, his mother, his baby brother—follow suit, until only his sister remains. She stays behind to squint at Ashe with death-faded, sea-green eyes.
Christophe nudges him. “Well, are you gonna tell her?”
Sana sighs. “Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but we’re dead. He can’t see either of us. He’s not gonna say anything to—”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Sana,” Ashe interrupts.
She stops dead in her tracks, mouth hanging open, gaze flickering in disbelief from Christophe to Ashe and back. She takes a couple of steps towards Ashe and watches the way his eyes track her movements, from the tilt of her head to the hand she waves in front of his nose.
Then, softly, with feeling: “What the fuck.”
Christophe doubles over and laughs until he cries.
Ashe spends a good part of the next fifteen minutes trying to get Sana Molinaro to stop freaking out. Or, at least, to get her to freak out in the relative privacy of his room, where there are no passersby to curiously watch him trying to get her to stop freaking out. Ashe is good, but he’s not that good, and he’d rather not have to deal with people watching him talk to thin air on his very first day here.
“You can see me.”
“I can.”
“You can see me?”
“That’s right!”
“My family, too?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Gods, that’s—that’s wild.”
A laugh. “Take your time.”
Once her curiosity has been adequately sated, though, she’s happy enough to talk to him—about Dedue, about their family, about what brought them to the academy. Ashe listens, something he knows well, and fields the rest of her questions in turn. Most of them are familiar, simple things, like so how long have you been able to see the dead? and do you have any siblings?, so they’re all relatively simple, familiar answers, like all my life and yes, one here, two at home.
Sana steals a glance at Christophe, who is sticking his hand into a candle flame and watching it sputter. “You don’t really look like siblings,” she says, almost apologetic. “Just look at you. Even his hair is more like mine than yours.” She pulls her single heavy braid over her left shoulder as an example, thick and glossy and soft. A shining example of what Christophe’s shoulder-length waves might have been, if only he had ever pretended to own a hairbrush.
“My father thinks we’ve got some Duscur blood in us somewhere,” Christophe says.
Sana cocks her head to the side. “Hm… you, I could believe. But him?” She gestures at Ashe with her chin. “This kid is the color of fresh milk.”
“I’m adopted,” Ashe blurts.
Christophe looks halfway between amused and offended. “Why’d you have to say it like that?”
“Ah. That makes sense,” Sana says, nodding sagely.
Ashe puts his head in his hands.
“My parents are dead,” he explains through his fingers. It comes out a little too matter-of-fact, maybe, but it’s a story he’s told too many times. Besides, it’s not like his audience can claim to be uncomfortable with the topic, can they? “They died of plague, when I was eight. Cole and Violet were only four. Christophe’s father, Lord Lonato of Gaspard—he took us in, and treated us like we were his own.”
“Imagine my surprise, twenty-one years old and handed a new set of kid siblings,” Christophe adds, looking down fondly at Ashe.
At that, Sana smiles, and Ashe is struck by just how young she looks, without the scowl. How soft her face goes when she’s not protecting something.
“Dedue and I are barely a year apart,” she says. “Avi came to us when we were nine. For the first few months, we didn’t know what to do with him. He was this quiet, squishy little thing, and I’d never had to deal with a brother who wasn’t my age before.”
“Sounds about right,” Christophe says. Ashe swats at his arm with one of the Loog books. It whiffs harmlessly through the air. “I didn’t have any other siblings, so it’s just Father and Ashe and the twins now.”
Something sad crosses Sana’s face. Not quite pity, but something shaped sort of the same. Ashe decides that he hates it.
“My brother died, but he’s still here,” he says. “Not everybody gets that lucky.”
“Lucky,” Sana repeats.
“I’ve lived my whole life seeing things that other people can’t see,” Ashe continues. “I can help the people other people can’t help. Every ghost has unfinished business, something they left behind—so I try to help them finish it, when I can. Life is hard enough. Death is even harder. Everyone deserves a chance at peace.”
Sana opens her mouth. Closes it again.
“You’re a weird kid,” she finally says.
Christophe peers down at her for a second before ruffling her hair. “Hey, aren’t you more of a kid than he is?”
Sana whirls on him. “Shut up! I’m fifteen! And I died four years ago, so I'm basically nineteen!”
“I’m sixteen,” Ashe says mildly.
“Like hell you are.” Short, dismissive. “You’re tiny. You could be twelve.”
“You—you’re just tall!”
“I’m average for Duscur, thanks. Not my fault you’re a—”
“Kids,” Christophe drawls, “you’re both very small.” He dodges the punch Sana throws with ease. “Say, Ashe, shouldn’t you get going? It must be dinnertime by now.”
Ashe takes a break from pouting at him to look out the window. “Oh, no. When did it get so dark?” he half-wails, scrambling to pull on his boots. “I told Dedue I’d sit with him, I hope he’s not waiting…”
“He’s probably eating with the princeling,” Sana informs him. “You’re late to dinner with the crown prince of Faerghus.”
Ashe blanches. “O-okay! Okay. Sorry, I really gotta go! I’ll see you later!”
He disappears as fast as one of his own ghosts, vanishing into the dark without so much as a single creak of the door behind him.
“He’s a special one, isn’t he?” Sana says, blinking in the general direction of Ashe’s doorway.
“You can say that again,” Christophe agrees. He stands up and starts floating in the direction of the dining hall. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s go catch up with your family. Watching Ashe try to talk to Prince Dimitri is gonna be prime dinner theater.”