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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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She would see him, after a time, passing through, on his way from one part of Skyhold to another. If she recalled nothing else about him, likely she would at least recognize him. A boy she'd met on the road from Haven, wasn't he?

He walked past her bedroll, paying no particular attention to it. One step, then another. Then he stopped. The brim of his hat swayed a little as he turned his head. A pause before he turned around more fully, looking down at the package she had left. He crouched down, his fingers brushing against the paper.

He vanished, and the fact of what had just occurred would slip against her memory, not wanting to stick. Until she heard his voice nearby.

"It doesn't work like that."

He was sitting a little ways away on the roof, his legs crossed under him.

She recognized him, vaguely--Cole. Cole was his name, wasn't it? He was a bit addled, but nice enough. A little confused, perhaps? What was he doing--then he was looking at her package. Had it been him...? But how had he known--

And then Cole reappears, and it almost doesn't matter how Cole knows anything, because Beleth quite nearly toppled right off the roof with a squawk of fright. Some rogue she was. But it was probably that rogue training that kept her from rolling right off the roof and just falling over instead. The squawk, however, was unavoidable.

"H-How--" She quickly got back up to a crouch, staring at him with wide eyes, equal parts confused, and worried. "Was that magic--or. Were those presents from you? The bark, the ring...?"

His expression wandered toward concern when she jumped at his presence, but she managed to catch herself, and so he stayed where he was.

"You were sad. I saw ways to make you smile. Was the halla all right? Drawing is hard," he admitted. "You have to pull the picture from your head without touching it."

"I was sad?" Well, yes, she's been sad, there's been plenty of times when Beleth was sad lately. But she tries to avoid burdening other people with it if it's not vital. No need to get people tired of listening to the endless list of laments she has, after all. Maybe she'd done a bad job of hiding it--But no. It was one thing to read an expression. It was another to be able to give her the presents that he had.

"The halla was very nice. Sorrel burned the halla after he finished drawing it, I'm glad I can keep this one. But--But how did you know? About any of those things?" She scooted closer to him, brows furrowed. Was Cole a demon? But demons are ugly, violent, and usually try to kill you. Cole wasn't any of those things. He was just...him. "Did you ask my clanmates?"

He shook his head.

"You miss Sorrel. He always kept your secrets, and now there's almost no one who can hear them." Not without 'burdening' then, as she thinks.

"Well--Yes." She still looks confused, and she scoots a little closer to Cole, looking at him curiously. "I lived my entire life with Sorrel. When we were little, he spoke for both of us, because I didn't like speaking. Even now, it's...weird." She turned to look up, over the battlements, off to the horizon. "Not having him around to sat the things that I don't want to. And to tell him the things that I don't want to tell anyone else."

She paused, tilting her head at him. She was probably boring him, too, but she supposes that he asked for it, bringing Sorrel up. "He can't get tired of listening to me. He's stuck with me, you know? We'll always be twins."

"Born under the same sky, but not the same." The twins had been set on different paths for a long time. He could tell she felt it, even now. "She thinks you send too many letters."

He didn't want to give her a chance to feel too sad about that, to question how he knew before he had a chance to say what came next: "He loves you, too. He wants you to be safe."

"Does she, now." It's not really a question, but it's so odd to be told that so forthrightly. Most of the people in the clan don't really...discuss her mother with her. No one does, really. She tries to avoid it. "If I stopped sending him so many letters, he'll get mad enough to march over here." She laughed quietly, looking over to Cole.

"I'm glad. Do you, um--Do you have any siblings...?"

There was, probably, some part of her that wanted to stop sending letters exactly for that reason. For only a second, he considered suggesting it — but, no. He had responsibilities at home. It would be better for him to stay there, for now.

"No." Not him, anyway. The real Cole hadn't had anyone, by the time he'd died.

She nodded, looking off at Skyhold under them for a few moments, before she turns back to Cole, a small smile on her face. "Cole. That's your name, right? I thought you were a rifter, the first time the rifters all appeared." Now they were all but a regular thing. You can get used to anything, she supposes.

There's another pause, as she studied him.

"But you aren't a rifter. What are you, Cole?"

For a long time, that was a question he wouldn't have been able to answer. Once, the answer might have been 'demon.' But recently, he'd been learning more. He had more of a name, now, than just Cole.

"They've said... Compassion." It still felt strange to say, and yet not wrong. "Following unseen and silent, a shadow, but not sinister. I just want to help."

"You're a spirit." Beleth doesn't know a lot about spirits and demons, but she knows enough. She blinks at him, surprised but not scared, reaching out to touch his shoulder, as if surprised by the fact that he's solid. "I've never heard of a spirit that had their own body before. Not like this."

She thinks for a few moments, then makes up her mind that it doesn't matter what Cole is. He's a good person, and that is what counts, surely. "Helping people is a good goal. I can respect that. Let me know if you ever need help, okay? I mean--" Pause. "--Need help helping, yeah?"

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