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[Open] But finally one day roses fade away
WHO: The Medicine Man and You!
WHAT: A catch-all for March/Drakonis
WHEN: Drakonis
WHERE: Skyhold and beyond!
NOTES: Will add as necessary
WHAT: A catch-all for March/Drakonis
WHEN: Drakonis
WHERE: Skyhold and beyond!
NOTES: Will add as necessary
Old Aching Bones - The Baths
The hotsprings had been a pleasant surprise - a little reminiscent of home, for whatever measure one could consider the winding road (or the overgrown wooded path when one took a wrong turn) home. It had struck him that Skyhold had, in a way, become the closest thing he ever had to a place to belong - at least with regards to the duration he spent in one general area.
As he set aside his clothes and pinned up his hair, it dawned that he may have to rethink how he was going to adapt to this strange new world and how that meant changing his methods. Sinking into the water, he stretched and flexed his hand where the Rift Shard had lodged itself. It was what tethered him to this Inquisition and all the trappings thereof which limited his options. He couldn't stray too far from other shard-bearers unless he had a nice stash of opium to keep the pain in check.
That made things... tricky.
He leaned back, letting the hot water drain the tension from his muscles and bones. It occurred that one possible solution might be actually working with others.
Which meant giving other people some modicum of trust.
His nose wrinkled at the very thought. How dreadful. Nothing good ever came of that.
Raw Materials - Outside Skyhold
The Medicine Seller was testing just how far he could go before the pain in his hand grew unbearable. The shard, it seemed, kept him on a relatively short leash, but he could at least get out from the stone walls of Skyhold and enjoy the clean mountain air.
There was another purpose to his wandering aside from just it being relatively nice out. The warm winds carried the promise of spring and a few brave, early blooms were making an appearance in the valley below. It was time to see the natural habitat of some of the new herbs he'd be working with in the days to come.
Elfroot seemed capable of growing in just about every condition imaginable. He'd stocked up already on that just by wandering along the perimeter of the market place. He couldn't go a few paces without a few shoots of it peeking up.
On these little outings, he could sometimes be found following a mountain creek to a clear pond, traversing its muddy shore, picking blood lotus and spindelweed. Other times, he could be found sprawled out comfortably in the boughs of a dogwood tree that sported a few early blossoms - perhaps he'd be enjoying a smoke from his pipe or just the simple fragrance from the tree.
A Strange Stranger - Skyhold
The Medicine Seller was like a very large house cat in both habit and demeanor. He was simultaneously curious and aloof, and had a tendency of vanishing for long amounts of time, only to turn up when he wanted to buy a warm meal.
He moved quietly, his wanderings around the fortress seemingly aimless. Sometimes he would stop dead in his tracks and stare unblinkingly at a crack in the wall or at a corner of a ceiling. Occasionally he'd pause to watch the training in the courtyard, or eavesdrop on gossiping servants to entertain himself.
Sometimes he wouldn't stare at or listen to anything in particular, but instead mutter wordlessly to the strange jeweled blade he sometimes kept tucked in that ludicrous sash.
He didn't seem to have any regular sleep cycle, but then that was centuries of traveling that had left him with that particular issue. Rather, he tended to catnap for a few hourse wherever a warm fire and relative absence of hustle and bustle presented itself.
And sometimes he'd be sitting comfortably, legs dangling off the side of the battlements as he gazed out over the Frostbacks. Despite his mask-like expression, there was a sense of melancholy as he took a long breath from his pipe.
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The Medicine Seller was not generally a man prone to sympathy or compassion. In many cases, people brought suffering on themselves. His job was to clean up the mess. Oftentimes it was very difficult to resist the temptation to say 'Well, maybe if you hadn't murdered a woman in cold blood and threw her off a bridge you wouldn't have a demon ghost hellbent on tearing your face off now would you?'. But it would do little good. There was no helping some people.
This was not the Case for Cole. There was little anyone could do that would justify chucking them in a cage and leaving them to rot. And that seemed to left its effect on the Compassion spirit.
Much like Tamaki's fate had left its mark on the Medicine Seller.
"Was that the Regret that drew you to him?"
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Cole's fingers rubs over the stones slowly, feeling the heat seeping up into his bones. "He was alone. Scared. He'd been alone for so long and he just wanted someone there, someone to care. I couldn't help him in the Fade, so I came through to sit with him. Hold his hand and let him know he wasn't alone while he died."
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Spirits generally made sense - they had their compulsions, odd as they were, but you could predict them. Cole was a spirit of Compassion - he was compelled to quell others suffering, just as an Abura Akago was compelled to drink oil from a lantern.
He probably should have left his questions at that - Cole was no demon or abomination so there was no reason for the Medicine Seller to pry.
But he had habits and compulsions of his own.
"Why did they put him in a cell?"
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"Because he was bad. He was an apostate. He'd never been in a circle and when they came to take him, he was scared and ran from them, set fire to the bushes to stop them chasing him."
He leans forward. "He wasn't bad," he whispers, like this is a great secret. "They just scared him. Men only ever hurt him."
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Now... now his features were strained; eyes narrowed, mouth pulled tight and thin, the tips of his fangs peeking out from the corners of his lips like an animal about to bare its teeth.
This rare expression wasn't directed at Cole - his gaze had flickered away from the young man for a brief moment.
He'd heard mutterings about the Templars' treatment of mages, and though he really didn't much approve of the Circles, most of the mages he'd talked to seemed to find them necessary, if in need of improvements.
Perhaps one of those improvements should be not leaving people to rot in prison just for setting some shrubberies on fire, the Medicine Seller thought bitterly.
"And so Cole's Regret became your own," he said, his face relaxing back into something more neutral
"But it did not consume you as it would other spirits."
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And Compassion had become Cole. Maybe because of that. Maybe because of another reason, of the fleeing soul confusing the spirit, the spirit simply trying too hard to understand and help.
"I forgot who I was. I thought I was Cole. Now I know I'm not. But I have his memories. There was- Rhys. He helped me. Helped me to become Compassion again, even though he didn't know he was doing it."
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"Mages do seem to face their shares of troubles," he said, as he regained his composure and his expression settled back into its usual neutral state.
"You seem to be many things all at once. Was Rhys a friend to you?"
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One finger dipped into the water, trailing back and forth softly. "I-" He looked up, slightly lost. "He was everything. Once. When I had nothing, he was everything."
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He was a master of multi-tasking, and was more than capable of listening to Cole and letting the water soothe the aches the day had brought him.
"A little more than a friend then."
He wondered how a spirit of this world would conceptualize friendship. Cole was, certainly, more complicated than his brethren.
He cracked open one eye, glancing at Cole stirring the water around.
"You can have a bath too, if you like. No one will stop you."
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When no one could see him, Rhys saw and Rhys cared. Enough that Cole had overcome his fear of Templars and people to follow him and help him. Protect him.
"Why would I have a bath? I don't sweat like mortals do."
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"My apologies - you seemed interested in the water. Though you may not sweat, there are some in my world who believe a good spring cleanses the soul as well as the body."
He didn't personally believe that - usually it just came from inn owners trying to sell the benefits of a nice bath. As far as the Medicine Seller was concerned, spiritual cleansing came from a great deal of internal self-reflection.
But there were few better places to that than soaking in hot water full of minerals that did wonders for the skin.
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"It's warm and it doesn't have impressions or emotions. The stones do, but not the water. It moves and heats and everything down here is... peaceful. I've never had a bath in a bath. I usually wash off the dirt and blood in a bucket or the river."
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Poor man really was missing out.
"It is a comfortable place to sort one's thoughts. If you wish to try, I will not stop you."
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Comfort is so alien to Cole's self, as much as he's concerned for others.
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He knew his own thoughts very well - he didn't have the degree of empathy that Cole possessed where the thoughts and feelings of others poured into his own head, where he was sure they'd get jumbled together.
The trouble lay in simply being in another world - and worse, tethered to a certain radius. He'd been doing the same thing for centuries, he had methods that worked. Now he needed to make changes and he felt like he was fumbling around in the dark.
That, and he wasn't immune to a bit of culture shock.
"Certain adjustments are necessary. I am simply contemplating what those shall be."
Things inevitably changed with time. Even the Medicine Seller.
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The sound clearly meant "I don't understand, but I'm not going to ask or push any further". Because he didn't understand, but he also didn't think he could, maybe.
"So, hot springs aren't just for getting clean or warm after being cold." That was what he was taking away from it.
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Besides, Cole already saw the worst of people. He seemed a nice young man and he certainly didn't need a double dose of that filtered through the Medicine Seller's own cynical view.
"Yes. They are for relaxing, socializing, thinking - the uses people find for them are multifarious indeed."
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He shifts to stretch out on his stomach along the warm stone, cheek pillowed on his arm and the other hand reaching to just touch the water again, hat hiding his face.
"I shouldn't be here. I should be outside helping."
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Did spirits here even sleep?
The thought got a bit of a chuckle out of him. He didn't have a particularly nice laugh - it was soft and cold like bitter, mid-winter snow. But it was, at least, genuine.
"I won't stop you," he said, "but it's not remiss to have a moment to yourself if you wish to relax."
People's troubles weren't flying off anywhere, after all.
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The thought had been loud and clear and echoed to him. And the laugh was warming too, because he hears the emotions.
"If I don't help them- Who am I?"
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"That feeling of warmth is why many enjoy this."
It was, after all, pleasant to simply exist in a moment of peace.
Cole's question, however, brought forth unbidden memories of Ochou. She had built her entire identity around the wants and needs of others, until she had lost all sense of self. Her death had come piece by agonizing piece and brought forth a faceless entity.
Would the same happen to Cole? He was a spirit of Compassion, and spirits in this world seemed to be uniquely single-minded. But he had also taken a physical form and lived in the physical world. That left things a bit more complicated.
Who am I was never an easy question, not for mortals or spirits.
"...Who do you think you are?"
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He wasn't a person. He wasn't just a spirit, either.
"I don't know. If I thought I knew who I was, I would know who I was." For a spirit like him, thought was action was being.
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"...And also how they are perceived by others."
It always came back to Form, Truth and Regret for him. The states of the body, mind and soul.
"What do you think when you consider yourself?"
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Cole remembers being Cole. And yes, how those memories shape him.
"I... don't?"
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Cole's other answer was... perplexing. Perhaps he misunderstood, or had been misunderstood - it was possible. It was hard to imagine someone not having any thoughts about themself whatsoever - and Cole was clearly self-aware and capable of emotions.
He made to get up out of the water and as that cool air hit him, he promptly thought better of it, noped right back into the spring, and submerged himself up to his chin. He'd get the mirror later, if he really had to.
"You truly do not think anything at all about yourself?" He asked.
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