faderift | Open | If you forget, is it like it never happened?

Seeker Reed has never met the boy-spirit Cole before. At least, he knows he hasn't, or perhaps he wasn't memorable enough to remember, given how very many people are here at Skyhold. More and more all the time. So long as the Inquisition keeps making appearances at the right places at the right times, they should hopefully keep a steady enough supply coming in, but he worries. Quietly, because it's not necessarily his place to worry about supplies, until the Advisors say otherwise.

Might be one of the reasons that, despite himself, he's in the kitchens. It's as much to make a quick inquiry about food and the like to keep those who don't fend for themselves fed as it is to hop in and help with the cooking, the cleaning, the prepping. He hasn't had as much time to do so lately as he's had in the past, but he still does try to make the time. And he isn't even one of the buggers who nips off with food like the kitchen is an open buffet. Despite injuries from the Winter Palace, his left arm all bandaged when he rolls up his sleeves for one thing, he moves easily and freely. He's had much worse, after all.

Nearly trips over a pale lad with a comically large hat. Had he always been there, lurking, or had Malcolm stopped paying attention for just a hair too long? "Watch yourself, or the cooks might chase you out with rotted fruit." It's happened before.

Cole has a plate piled with a random assortment of food items. There's cut off scraps, a fresh baked bread roll, the woody stems of leafy greens which have been dumped next to a carefully balanced mug of hot stew. If it's a meal for him, it's a lot of random things, especially given that he seems half starved, pallid and thin.

"They never chase me out. They don't notice me. I don't know how you noticed me... Oh. Seeker."

His face isn't very expressive, but he does seem to draw back a little, slightly wary.

It's the fact that the boy looks like he could be a week out from death that keeps him from raising a fuss about the pilfered food. He sets down the bowl he'd been stirring up; the contents could stand to sit a little bit.

"I don't know how they don't notice you." But the boy hadn't been noticed until just now, so what does that say about Malcolm?

The reaction to being recognized as one of the few Seekers is...unfortunate, but he chooses not to comment on it. He's gotten the full gamut in his time, knows that his order isn't seen kindly by many.

"There's usually enough to go around." A frown, a thoughtful squint. They don't chase him out because they don't notice him, which means he's just taking it. "You don't have to be so sneaky about it. You can always ask. Did you just get here? You look as though you haven't eaten in ages."

"No one notices me unless they need to. But you're a Seeker. Cassandra sees me as well." Sometimes. These days, now he can make himself be seen.

He looks at the plate. "The stew for Jenessa, the wound in her gut aches, sip something warm, with the elfroot water, you need nutrition. Bread for the watchtower, they don't want to complain but they get hungry, it's a long watch, a little bread to see them through, to ease their hunger so they can watch better. She can't hunt right now, not until her paw recovers, scraps keep her healthy until then. They have a litter, just a few, no one else eats the scraps but nugs like them. I don't eat. Not since I came back from Adamant. The meat was hot, but it felt heavy."

He ducks his head and rubs at his face with the back of his hand.

"Cassandra doesn't let much out of her sight." But that's not...quite the way the boy seemed to mean, not in how he phrased it. He nearly asks--might still ask, but the boy's explanation goes on.

And it's odd. It's warming, food for those in need, but then he's talking about animals and litters. The transition is what makes it odd. Still, endearing.

"Adamant? You were there?" That dread place where the Wardens had been, where Venatori had been, where a rift swallowed so many of them up to wade through the Fade, that snaps him to attention. If ever there was a place that was cursed, Adamant certainly felt like it. "Did you just return from a mission out there?" He wasn't aware of one, but maybe it wasn't one he needed to know about. Even though one should be covered as much as possible under the sun, this kid seems still too pale for having recently been there.

"I've been there twice."

Both times were nightmares, literally and figuratively. Both times, he ended up in the Fade, fighting against the things drawn by his memories. "The first time, I stabbed an Archdemon to try and stop it hurting Rhys. The second time, Bruce was with me. We were scared together."

Following Cole's conversation can be a challenge in and of itself. He doesn't mean to make it difficult. "No. I went where I was needed, to help. There's no one in Adamant to help."

He's fairly certain he doesn't know a Rhys, though there are bound to be Rhyses in the Inquisition. Bruce might be the mage healer Banner? Hm. Not on missions, though.

Malcolm shakes his head slowly. "I fear the best options regarding Adamant are to cleanse it top to bottom and remake it for our use or raze it to the ground. Both would be monumental tasks."

But Adamant Fortress isn't the point. No, the point is food, food for an injured woman, for those on watch, and for a nug and its litter. The boy said he doesn't eat, but Malcolm doesn't take that to be literal. A quick look around, and there's a little bit of leftover shepherd's pie sitting in a dish. "Gertrude, you're not saving that, are you?" He scoops it up when the addressed cook waves a dismissing hand, hands the dish over.

"You should take something for yourself. You look like skin and bones. But you should make a point of asking next time, hm? You might be careful, but you're not invisible." Rogues don't go invisible, anyway. They just use perception and shadow to their advantage. Surely that's all this is. Unless the boy has magic to him.

"Rhys was a Senior Enchanter of White Spire. Yes, healer Banner. He's a good person. He cares."

Cole thinks Adamant should be closed up and left forever. It will "- never be clean of the horror, the stones and metal will always remember what was done there, the suffering, the betrayal, the horror, etched forever into them. Am I using my outside voice? I have troubles sometimes, with inside and outside."

His voice is still soft, never raising loudly.

"I'm not invisible, but people don't see me when I don't want them to. And I don't eat. You can have it if you're hungry. Or I might take it to the watchtower, more than just the bread."

No. Wait. That's not possible. (What's impossible in impossible times such as these?) Malcolm doesn't recoil so much as straighten suddenly and stiffly. What is this, is this a demon in a child's body? Is this some wayward trapped spirit? Something new, something out of a rift, some experiment? This isn't just a boy, and no mage. This is dangerous is what it is. Did Cassandra know of this and think it okay?

This should never be. Like the tainted water, driving them mad, thinning their view through the veil--Faith on one shoulder, Despair on the other, chattering quietly about him and he could almost, almost hear them, when they would lean in to say--no, this is not that. This is something more tangible.

The thought process takes a moment, two moments at most, before he makes a sharp motion directed out of the kitchen. He doesn't understand this, because whatever this thing inside a boy is, it's quiet and helpful and endearing, but it also shouldn't be. But he is not having this conversation here with the busy cooks where anyone hanging around might overhear.

"No! It's my body!"

It's a brief, sharp and loud call and then the plate clatters to the floor as Cole abandons it, vanishing first in a flash of not actually light and then reappearing in a burst of smoke outside moments later, in the yard outside the kitchen.

He looks scared, backed against a low lying wall.

That gets the attention of some of the cooks, giving the Seeker a startled look. The boy could've gotten anywhere, he has to-- "It's fine," he says in a hurry, motioning to the floor. "Just clean that up."

And he's dashing off. Which doesn't seem fine, but what are they gonna do, question a Seeker of Truth? Malcolm's got a good eye, but he doesn't know where to start except to simply start, looking down corridors. What if he isn't even in Skyhold anymore? How far did he go? But the boy's concerned about people, and nugs. Might not have gone far, although Skyhold is still massive. Especially if he doesn't want to be found. If he doesn't want to be seen. He makes his way outside.

Something else bothers him, niggling in the back where the thoughts of spirits (Hope with such a soft voice, Despair so ragged) are vying for attention. Senior Enchanter of the White Spire. This spirit, this demon, this kid, this...whoever, whatever, had he been there? Had been at the Spire when everything happened? Had he been a mage there?

"What are you?" he muses aloud in wonder to the air. Best check the perimeter yet, while his senses are still on high alert.

It takes a while for Cole to calm down enough to let himself be seen and a little longer until he approaches Malcolm... or at least puts himself in his line of sight, sitting on a wall where he can flee if he has to.

"I don't know what I am," he says by way of greeting. "I'm a spirit, I remember being a boy, I have my own body, I'm not a revenant or an abomination. I'm just me. I'm him without the magic. I don't belong in the Fade anymore. You scared me. I'm not a demon. Solas said so. Cassandra agreed."

He starts for a moment, was he always there or did he just appear? "I scared you?" Well. His reaction and his being a Seeker would probably have done that.

Solas saying so is one thing. He is the expert in these matters, but still... Cassandra saying so puts things in a different light. "You've possessed this body. That's a harsh thing to overlook." He'll have to ask her personally. "...A demon would not want to help feed those who need it," Malcolm eventually concedes, though a demon would also lie about it. No reason for a demon to go taking that food, on the other hand.

"Yes."

His main experience with Seekers and Templars has been violence against his self. Or others.

"No! You're not listening! It's my body, I made it when I came through, it's not a mortal body!" He flickers away again, because he's upset and Malcolm isn't listening. "I'm not a revenant! Or an abomination! I'm just me."

"Wait--" He reaches out to where the boy-not-abomination had been, though the voice is still there. Best not to chase after ghosts.

"Wait. You're saying you made this body? You crafted it for yourself when you passed through the Fade into this world? How...can something like that be?"

"This is my manifestation."

He draws back, not wanting to be touched, not by this person he doesn't trust.

"Rage is a pillar of molten anger. Envy wants to be you, whoever you are, be more than you. I look like Cole, because that was the shape I needed to be."

"But those are manifestations of what they are, what they represent. They can certainly appear the same in the Fade as here. You're..." 'The boy' has a name. "Cole."

Cole is not the name of a spirit. It might be a way to seem more human, pass by more easily. To let ones guard down. "Why are you here?"

"I'm Cole now. Cole wanted another life, where he didn't have magic. He wanted to not be alone and forgotten when he died.

"Before I was Cole, I was Compassion. I'm here because here is where I can help the most. Why are you here?"

There's accusation in that question.

He's a little taken aback by the tone. "I'm here to stop the encroaching darkness in the form of Corypheus and his cronies from engulfing the land in chaos. It's my duty. Do you doubt that? Does my presence offend you so thoroughly?"

Cole looks off somewhere else. "Lambert only wanted to hurt people. Hurt mages. Their fear made him warm, their suffering was an electric charge under his skin."

Lord Seeker Lambert. He'd been Cole's first exposure to the Seekers.

"No. But you've not had much Compassion in you for me. It makes me wary."

The invocation of the late Lord Seeker's name settles Malcolm's features into stiff disapproval. "Lambert was a fool. I knew not the Lord Seeker personally, but that Lady Seeker Nicoline had chosen him over the Divine's objections--Most Holy had her reasons." And if Cole knew Lambert, then it was no wonder he was wary of Seekers, much less Malcolm's opinions.

He can't rightly say if his (supposed) death made matters better or all the worse. "I had hoped Lord Seeker Lucius would see reason, but he's gone along with the Accord's nullification, and only the Maker knows where he and the others have gone."

And someday he'll be found. But it can't take priority. He sighs. "You must understand that your...position is strange and startling. I am taught that you belong in the Fade, not running around here...feeding the ill."

"Lambert was a monster."

That's a statement. No question, voice cold and hard. Lambert had hurt Cole, but much more importantly, he had hurt the mages of the Spire, he had hunted Cole's friends and he had tortured Rhys. He had hurt Rhys, who really didn't have it in him to be cruel to anything.

"He envies what he doesn't have, even as he has it."

He gazes off somewhere else and then refocuses. "I don't belong in the Fade anymore. I haven't since I came through. And someone needs to feed them."

Open | If you forget, is it like it never happened?

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