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WHO: Cole & Several (includes OPEN THREAD for Rifters)
WHAT: Compassion returns to Skyhold.
WHEN: Early-Mid Haring
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Cole works best with individualized threads rather than completely open ones. Please don't be afraid to contact me (Plurk or PM) if you'd like to set something up! Prompts will be posted in comments.

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Tranquility. Cole's fingers tighten lightly on the ledge. Tranquil are blank spaces, vessels of emptiness. They are a lack, frozen, the space between one thought and another stretched to eternity. But mostly, her thought of the Tranquil calls up something from his own past. The way Pharamond had begged for death, his terror at the prospect of returning to that place.

"Some things can still be brought back." Even the Tranquil. Although the price could be terrible.

"Burned until they're blank, staring at the world, unblinking. They remember the feeling of fear. They forget how to dream, how to flee to the Fade."

"Not everything, but most." Flight. Plants. Hope after the loss of the Herald even if is but the smallest shards. She slips her hands from the plant to turn and face Cole properly, warmth leeching from her at that rattling reminder of what wanders in the Library.

Of what Robert had chosen for fear of possession or death.

"That- they are as they are. There is no nursing them back." It'd been a rumor. A horrible rumor, murmured in frantic whispers, one that sparked so much bloodshed and near as she could recall no truth worth having to it. If it is true...it can't be.

"Hungry for hope, those who remain wonder and whisper, rumors flying though the Spire..."

All other thoughts stop there. He had sensed an edge of it before, something familiar, circling, and has just now landed on it. The White Spire.

Now he's looking directly at her. Wide eyes pulled wider, haunted. Afraid?

"You — you were there."

She's said it before. Mentioned it. But hearing it from anyone else causes a full body flinch. Those that were there knew one another for who they were. Most don't speak of it. She tries to not.

"We escaped." Her and her students. Through the fear and the rage and the bloodshed, through the hand around her throat and the scent of singed flesh under the crackle of lightening.

"Too many dead. Seeker betrayed us, betrayed everyone. Handle the mages, hang them if they won't listen." In the last sentence his tone had become harsh, a gravelly whisper, the thoughts of a cruel man.

And then, back to normal.

"He... stopped caring about protecting people a long time ago."

Little by little she goes still and rigid, remembered fear leaving frost on her breath and in her hands. How does he know? There he might have been but that- he'd have to have been in the room where the final conclave had been held. Been with the First Enchanters and all that died or were captured.

How?

"If he ever did. We were herded and cut down like cattle over a rumor. Over the barest scraps of legitimate discontent." They'd listened. They'd followed his rules, they'd obeyed and still- death. So much death.

"I was there." At once, he isn't afraid to admit it. Not that part. The shared experience rests around them, a cold cloud. Cold can be fought by drawing together. "My friend was captured. So many more were killed. I'm... I'm glad you made it out."

It's the most he can offer, for the moment.

"You are neither mage nor templar." They hadn't allowed visitors of any sort around that time, the whole Spire locked up tight to protect them from interference with the Lord Seeker's plan. Some of the ice thaws, curiosity covering for fear. For anger. It is not his fault, what happened.

If he was there he'd been some manner of observer, an innocent bystander. Her hands warm as she extends one to him, palm up. Solidarity. "It was a near thing. I'm glad you came away unharmed. It was chaos."

Neither mage nor templar. No. She had thought it herself, that he was like a spirit. She may work it out, eventually.

For now, she's offering him a hand. He takes it slowly, cautious, like he isn't entirely sure what to do with it. But after a couple of seconds, his rough glove presses against her palm. His hand will feel entirely normal: warm, tentative, calloused fingers.

"Afterwards, I followed the templars. Some of them still sounded the same. I thought they would protect me. They couldn't. The red crystals sang over everything... That's when She found me. The Herald. And I found Her."

It'll take some observing, some meditation on things she'd rather not recall for it to come to her. For now he's an innocent that was caught up in a mess larger than anything the Spire had ever seen. For now he has her concern. Hesitant as the gesture had been, tentative as his grip is- she holds fast to his hand. An anchor. Something grounding, rough memory and emotional pain are still pain, albeit pain that she cannot soothe easily.

"Red Templars. Why am I not surprised that they had some hand in the aftermath?" Just as much as the Venatori had a hand in Redcliffe, in twisting the hopes of her peers into service of a being they did not understand. "Did you know her well?"

"I don't know." What does it take to know someone well, he wonders? He doesn't think he can say. Still, what comes next is more of a lament than an excuse:

"She wasn't here very long."

"No. She wasn't." Adelaide reaches out with her other hand, cradling Cole's between. "But she did great things for those that knew her."

Yes. She did. With that in mind, Cole turns his head to look across the courtyard, at all the people working, walking and talking.

"The Inquisition is still an idea. People still want it to mean something. The Seeker started it, but She held it together."

When he turns back to Adelaide, he's smiling, his hand still in hers. "We're still growing. Vines stretching, roots reaching, seeking the sun. It's a good thing we have teachers."

"Commander Cullen and the others are doing what they can to hold it in her absence. I would like to think that some o the rest of us help." Organizing. Minding. Mending.

A death is a wound like any other without any of the usual ease in healing. Time, coping, rebuilding- moving forward can do much. Dwelling offers little comfort though she does wonder, for a moment, what it might have been like to know the Herald. If there would have been any advice she might offer.

"And all the better to have others with which we grow."

His smile brightens a little further, his hand giving hers a squeeze — and then he's gone, just as a cool breeze sweeps through the garden.

Adelaide will still feel the pressure against her hand. A gentle reminder, in case the memory of him starts to slip away.

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