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]

"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."

[meds4sale]

"Old places often do," he agreed.

Be it the building itself or someone or something still dwelling inside, there was always a pull to that kind of mystery. Granted such things were not always benevolent, but that's just the way it went sometimes.

"Did you see many interesting things?"

He wondered what a spirit's take on the physical world would be in a place where such things were so separate.

[killedwithlove]

"See? I see rocks and stones and old wood. But I know other things from them. A lover's tryst, their last time to meet before she marries and moves away; a mother holds her baby and cries; she won't let them have the body and something else crawls into it and it's not her baby that looks out through its milky eyes."

It's a form of psychometry. Sort of. Memories still lingering in the emotions that stained the Fade and stone.

[meds4sale]

"Such strong memories do have a habit of lingering."

One way or another. He'd seen - well, experienced - the phenomenon before, though it had been from Mononoke who desperately wanted their Truth and Regret known, rather than echoes that had seeped into wood and stone.

But a place holding such memories was not terribly surprising. Objects like sandals or umbrellas gained a sort of life of their own after a certain amount of time. He saw no reason why old ruins shouldn't develop a conscious either.

"Do you go simply to remember?"

[killedwithlove]

"I don't remember. They do. I just listen. Or know." He slides onto the nuggalope to reach the other horn, giving it the same treatment.

He can't really explain how it works, because he's just always done it.

[meds4sale]

"How curious," he almost hummed to himself.

He wondered if Cole was compelled to go to such places, like a moth to flame, or if they were curiosities that simply caught his attention?

The Medicine Seller cast him a sidelong glance.

"You appear to have made a friend."

That was one happy... horned pig-rabbit. It looked a bit like a Hakutaku with hands rather than hooves.

[killedwithlove]

"Hm? I don't know if we're friends, but her horns here uncomfortable and she doesn't have a shrub to stick her head in to loosen the flakes out." He runs his fingers tips around the base, double checking that everything is good now and then moves back to sitting on the wall with a graceful motion.

[meds4sale]

"Ah. My apologies - it is a figure of speech."

He should have guessed Cole would be on the more literal side.

"May I ask you - which do you prefer to be called? Cole? Compassion? Mercy?"

He doubted Despair was even on the table.

[killedwithlove]

"Oh."

So he didn't actually think Cole and the nuggalope were friends.

"Cole. I've been Cole since I came through from the Fade. I'm not Mercy. I don't want to be Mercy. Cole is enough for me."

[meds4sale]

That was a very disappointed sounding 'Oh'. For a brief instance, the Medicine Seller regretted being such a socially maladjusted ball of cynicism on legs.

Very brief. But it happened.

"Cole is enough - very well."

He bowed, bent at the waist. A feat, considering the huge wooden box strapped to his back.

"You have been most gracious to entertain my questions. Thank you, Cole."

[killedwithlove]

Cole raises a hand, probably in farewell, and then simply vanishes from sight.