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

[killedwithlove]

WHO: Cole and anyone who needs or wants him
WHAT: Cole's back. If he ever left. Who really knows?
WHEN: Now until end of February.
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: If you want a personal starter, drop me a PM or find me at jemisard

Those sensitive to such things might notice that Cole is back. He's hard to remember at the best of times, and after such a long period, Cole himself expects virtually no one to remember who he is or that he's allowed to be here.

But it doesn't stop him doing what he does. Moving about, helping those he can.

Comments

[killedwithlove]

"Yes. They Despaired and I tried to help them. Cole suffered and then died and that stopped his suffering. They... called to me. Without meaning to."

He knows better now. "I told Rhys. He was very angry. He wanted to take me to the Templars, but I wouldn't let him. I don't trust most Templars."

[meds4sale]

The Medicine Seller couldn't argue on that front. While the mages didn't engender much confidence from him either, the Templars seemed considerably more malignant.

"You were able to stop."

A pattern was beginning to emerge here.

"Are other spirits able to make such choices? Or are they bound completely to their compulsions?"

[killedwithlove]

"He helped me."

Cole scrunches his nose up.

"I'm not like them. I'm more complicated. They are what they are, which is what mortals make them." So no, they can't make that choice.

[meds4sale]

The Medicine Seller nodded. Cole had given him a much clearer picture now of the spirits in this world. And he was curious about where his story went from there.

If Rhys had helped him, then there was no sense in the Medicine Seller spending time navel gazing and moralizing about why killing people was Not Good.

"Is Rhys with you here?"

[killedwithlove]

"No. I haven't seen Rhys in... a couple of years, I suppose. He didn't want to see me again, so I never went back to find him."

Not since Lambert stripped the confusion away, laying bare what Cole was to Rhys... and to himself.

"He has Evangeline to look after him. He isn't very good at doing it himself, he daydreams and gets snuck up on and then he runs into things without his staff..." There's genuine worry in there, but he pushes it down, doesn't let himself chase the thread. "I hope he's safe and happy."

[meds4sale]

Worry. sadness. Concern and longing for another and yet wishing them well. Complicated emotions that he would certainly expect from spirits back home, but not here.

"Ohh? That is ...unusual."

Especially given that this Rhys had forgiven him for six murders. Something else must have happened.

"Why is it that he did not want to see you again?"

[killedwithlove]

"... he found out I was a demon."

It was different before. He was a hedge mage who killed people to help them, not a demon, on the wrong side of the Fade, killing because his nature compelled him.

He ducks his head, hiding behind the brim of his hat. "I felt his shock and horror. He called me demon in his mind and it was so loud and clear... I could hear him like I hadn't before and he was..."

He shrugs a little. "I hope he's safe and happy."

[meds4sale]

"But it would appear he was wrong about one thing."

Not that the Medicine Seller could entirely blame Rhys. After all, it seemed all spirits got conflated with demons in this world, whether they were or not. And it mages had good reason to be afraid, even of those more benign.

But language was important. He didn't know what Cole was but the silence from his pack made it very plain what he wasn't.

"You are not a demon."

[killedwithlove]

"No. I'm not."

He rocks on his feet, back and forth.

"If I turn into a demon, would you kill me?"

[meds4sale]

"Maybe," said the Medicine Seller in that vague way of his.

It was, after all, an odd question. But something that seemed to really nag at the young man. The Medicine Seller didn't see a reason to torment him with unnecessary uncertainty.

"It depends on what you become."

If the sword would even recognize Cole as a demon, or something else, that is.

"...And how drastically you are changed. Should the sword be unsheathed, it may not mean your death."

[killedwithlove]

"Despair."

It was what Compassion became. Mercy, then Despair as the suffering became overwhelming, a total lack of compassion turning that suffering into a misery too deep to get out of the soul.

"I'll be dangerous. You should kill me. If I become a demon."

[meds4sale]

It wasn't as though the Medicine Seller was reluctant to do so should the circumstances arise. After all, he'd put many souls to rest in the past. But if Cole was, as he said, unique, so too might be the circumstances of his possible change.

"If the sword can be drawn, then it will work as intended."

Whether that meant Cole would survive or die was another matter entirely.

"That is all the assurance I can give."

...Or perhaps not.

"Though I think it would be difficult for you to become a simple demon."

[killedwithlove]

"But is its intention? Your intention, or its? Or someone else's?"

Cole has ideas about how things are. They're not the same as most people, but can touch closer to being right on occasion.

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. I could be forced. A mage could bind me, break me, bleed me into a bastard of what I am."

[meds4sale]

"Who can say?"

Well, the Medicine Seller could, for starters. But he won't.

"My goodness. It seems even spirits have cause to fear mages."

He wondered if a spirit here with the capacity for Truth and Regret would be as easy to bind as any of its brethren. Or if mages would even recognize Cole as a spirit to begin with. After all, he went against everything they understood.

[killedwithlove]

"You could say."

Cole can't read Rifters very well, but this individual resonates that bit better. "Some of them realise I'm a spirit. After a while, talking with me."

Which means he can pick up the odd thought here and there.

[meds4sale]

Maybe one day he even would.

But that had been interesting - it would seem Cole had a rare gift. His curiosity was piqued once again.

"From your own admission? Or because you see well into another's thoughts?"

He had to resist, with every fiber of his being, letting his thoughts stray to more absurd imagery out of a sense of mischief. To his credit, he did very well. ...Mostly.

[killedwithlove]

"Um... usually because I don't manage to stay out of their thoughts. I can't read Rifters as well, the shard is bright and burning, but I can do it usually and you're, easier than some. Maybe you're more like me than most of them."

He tilts his head.

"I don't think the carrots need hats."

[meds4sale]

"Perhaps," said the Medicine Seller, taking refuge in his usual vagueness. He was no spirit of Compassion or Mercy or even Despair, but his work had left him short on the first, with a deep understanding of just what the second entailed, and how much the third was almost intrinsic to the human condition.

"There is no Veil in my world so the line between physical and spiritual is not so... distinct."

His gaze wandered up to Cole's impressive headwear. Why would you deprive the carrots such splendid attire?

[killedwithlove]

"Perhaps," Cole agrees. He's often vague as well, though it's rarely intentionally obfuscating.

"There wasn't always a Veil here." But then he smiles, an actual smile, however small. "Most people don't like my hat!"

[meds4sale]

He couldn't really fathom why people didn't like the hat. It seemed both functional and fashionable. But then, there were nobles bustling around in skirts bigger than he was, so maybe it wasn't wise to look to them for expertise on style.

"Ten people, ten colours," he said offhandedly, for once not botching an idiom.

He was curious about what Cole had just said.

"Though... that is not what I have heard about the Veil."

He hadn't really believed the Maker had brought it into being, but it had been the only explanation he'd found. It seemed there might have been another.

[killedwithlove]

"Just because people don't remember before it, doesn't mean it wasn't so."

Cole doesn't remember a time before the Veil. But he's listened to the ruins and stories and other things which whisper a different world.

"I don't know if the Maker had anything to do with it. I've never seen the Maker. And if he's real, he's not very nice."

[meds4sale]

"No," the Medicine Seller agreed. "He isn't."

But that was neither here nor there. If the Maker was, indeed, real, then there was no use in dwelling on a god that had abandoned it's creations.

"Do you remember such a time? Or only that there was?"

[killedwithlove]

"No. I don't remember that. I probably didn't exist. Some of the stones of the ruins whisper it." He moves with a thought of intent, a flicker of shadow and dark green smoke so he's sitting on a low wall instead. From there, his hand comes down to rest on a nuggalope's head, scratching behind the horns absently.

"I don't think the world could go back to that way. Not without breaking it and making something new."

[meds4sale]

There was a brief nod from the Medicine Seller. He'd thought something similar when the Veil had been explained to him. Like a massive dam breaking over a town - the resulting chaos killing inhabitants of land and water alike. Perhaps eventually things would calm - nature had a way of adapting after all - but the very landscape would be changed.

"It is a rare gift to understand stones," he said, approaching the stalls that contained the Inquisition's menagerie.

He stayed close to the older horses, ones well-used to strange smells and strange people. He liked animals, but the feeling was not always mutual. Majestic as some of those harts were, they looked plenty skittish.

"Have you been to many of these ruins?"

[killedwithlove]

Cole likes animals. Animals like Cole, drawn to his quiet and his gentleness with them. He carefully rubs his fingers over a horn, brushing out flaking scale from a moult.

"Some. With Solas, or for the Inquisition. Sometimes I go to them because they call to me, want to be remembered."