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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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To say that hearing that was disturbing was an understatement. To Cole the horror of that comment was probably as clear in his mind as it was on his face. A mage left in a dungeon to die?

"Why?"

"They forgot."

Simple as that. He had been put down there for a reason. He was responsible for death, even if it hadn't been his magic that did it. But he was a mage, so he went to the Circle. And he was nothing to them.

So they forgot.

"Things were... bad. In the Spire."

They forgot?

That was just cruel, one more thing to add to the long list of how Mages could and were mistreated in some Circles.

"The Spire. You mean the White Spire?" The one that LeBlanc and the children had come from?

Cole kicked his dangling feet.

"It's where I came from. Before the templars. Before Therinfal." Before the Inquisition.

The way Cole dangled and kicked his legs might have been amusing at any other time, but it goes unnoticed now as Sam just stares at the spirit.

Cole hadn't said 'yes', but that was an obvious confirmation. "And no one saw you there?"

"Some people did. Usually they forgot. People don't remember me, most of the time." It was a bit sad, but he'd come to terms with it.

"People forge- Why is that, Cole?" People just... forgot about him? Had there been something about the White Spire that did that?

"It's what happens. When they don't see me, I'm not real. I used to think that was just the way it was... but I think they want to forget. It's better to let them."

Sam hadn't heard of anything like that, at least not about a Compassion spirit. Then again Cole wasn't a normal spirit. Perhaps something he could ask Adelaide what she knew as well. Or if she had known about Cole while at the Spire.

"And you don't... mind that?" Being forgotten? Did something like that matter to a spirit or was that simply a thing that affected beings on this side of the veil.

"It doesn't matter if they remember me. It matters that I help." It's nothing he hasn't said before, but that makes it no less true.

He supposed that was the most important thing for Cole, to help. Leaning the back of his thighs against the edge of the table, Sam tilts his head a bit. "Is that why you found me? About help?"

He has to think about that one for a second. Even knowing more about what he is, Cole doesn't always know why he's being drawn to someone.

"I heard the music in the metal. I came to watch, and listen."

His feet kick again, a tic, almost like the mechanism in a clock.

"You've seen the Charger again."

"I see him everyday," is his immediate response, a smile curling his lips, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. The smile drops a bit though as Sam gives a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck after watching Cole for a few moments.

"Which particular time are you referring to? Back in the Mire or you talking about here in Skyhold now?"

"I mean you've seen him again." Just as he'd said. In the Mire, at Skyhold. All of it.

"You know about the parts that don't fit."

It isn't all that surprising that Cole brings that up. Question was did he know about it, or had Krem said something to him?

"I do." He doesn't specify when or where since it hardly mattered, and Cole probably knew about those details already. "He's very troubled by it, too, though I'm not sure if because of... the 'fit' or because I know."

"You understand, but it was too new. Too soon to trust." This might not be anything Sam hadn't thought of himself. But maybe hearing it out loud would help.

"Are you reading my thoughts or is this coming from Krem?" It helped... to a point. Too soon to trust. Krem had trusted him enough to tell him about all of that, but... he didn't trust him enough now that he knew? Or had he not trusted him at all on this particular matter and he had been told just out of necessity?

Sam gives a sigh and rubs his brows tiredly. The same questions over and over, swimming around in his head and not being able to find out the answer.

"The doubts tangle together. It's hard to tell." Really, the thoughts came from both of them.

There was reassurance to be found in all this, though. "It isn't the questions. It's that you care enough to ask."

Questions that he asks himself and too worried to ask Krem directly. He wants to know, to understand better, but it's obvious that Krem reacts different to him asking questions than others. Because they aren't just friends.

"Sometimes it's hard to ask, Cole. But thanks. That does help a bit."

"Good."

Some problems, Cole was finding, were like a wall. Big and insurmountable when you looked at them, but in fact made up of little pieces that could be taken away one by one. Just there, he thought he felt another one slip free.

In the same moment, something caught his attention from the yard outside. Something Sam wouldn't be able to hear. In the next, Cole was gone without another word.

"Oh... kay..."

He had literally only blinked and suddenly Cole was gone as soon as he had appeared. A bit stupefied by that, Sam can only stare at the table that the spirit had been sitting on for a time before raising a brow and going back to work.

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