Ash: Ethical Use

Beyond Vareholm, farmers and frontier folk staked out their claims. One such small, fortified house overlooked rolling hills of wheat. Ash and her mentor walked up its creaking wooden steps, the latter pausing halfway.
A slight nod from Cale, mysterious and ever opaque. Ash went alone from here. She knocked.
They’d fit so much history and life into the five or so years this place had stood. Now this grandfather was about to pass on. Decades of life and experience and wisdom were about to vanish with the last rattling breath to leave his body.
Ash knew it could be undone. Even old age wasn’t a barrier to some forms of resurrection. For the price of a few years wages a druid or wizard would build this man a new, young body. But amassing that wealth was a challenge for honest folk. Sure they could drop pennies into a jar over the years or pry the diamonds from family heirlooms, but life would intervene. One day the jar would be smashed to fix a leaking roof, re-shoe a horse that had to ride that very day, or pay the cleric to remove a disease that would kill their child. Even more insidious, poverty wages would drain the wealth as surely as a thief in the night.
This life got you coming and going.
That was a mountain to summit later. Cale had taught Ash to crawl before she ran, and for now that meant this visit would be bittersweet. The old man would take his wisdom into the realms of the gods and he would leave his family behind until they too met their end.
Old age clawed at Mr. Henester, ripping the last few vestiges of color from what had one been a proud golden mane and leaving just dull steely gray. His eyes could barely focus on Ash. The room smelled like he’d long ago lost control of his bowels, and only by herculean effort had his wife made the space bearable. Dallia had taught her to be the shepherd at these thresholds. If only they’d brought the man to the Hospice, saved everyone here the heartache-
Too late now. She was here on ill business. A pouch of coin hit the bedside table with its clinking golden song.
“Mr. and Mrs. Henester. I have a proposition for you, something of a death insurance policy. If you will hear me out…”