faderift | (no subject)

The song is scattered around Skyhold now, and parts of it linger in other places — places it is needed. The fragmented tunes concerned him at first, but for now, it's good that they are here. Better a broken song than none at all.

He seeks them out. It's harder to know them as well as he knew Her — there's so many of them. But he can try.

He appears in front of them, a shy figure coalescing from a puff of smoke.

"You're still alive. That's good."

He'd known she was here since before he left. A familiar presence, a cloud that caught the whispers and stray threads. They trailed around and past her, rather than through.

He hadn't said hello. They hadn't seen one another, not with eyes, and it was enough, for the time being, just to know.

On returning, however, he looked. He could see how things had changed in his absence — some of them — but it would be nice to hear from someone who had experienced it firsthand. Who knew how to look and listen.

She recognized him by the hat. But recognizing something and feeling comfortable with it were two very different things. And when he appeared in front of her, the spike of fear wasn't so much at him materializing. Elves did that in Valeria all the time. It was that, as far as she knew, he was the only person in Skyhold who knew.

Who knew that she was dangerous.

Ariadne had gone about the place as best she could, given the circumstances. She'd managed to make herself useful here and there, whether it was cleaning up blood in the healers' tents or fetching and carrying wood. And of course, playing her flute for the children.

To all appearances, she was completely innocuous.

But Cole knew better. Cole had seen her talons. And seen her rip through a demon like tissue paper. And after going so long without seeing him, she'd sort of hoped it would all be forgotten.

Evidently not.

"Alive," she said, eyes going so wide that the whites could be seen all around the gray. "Yes."

Things were muddier today. Simon had been trying in vain to keep her powers in check, to stop the voices. For lack of better options he'd given her a potion that made things drag, sleepy and slow. Dreamlike, but isolated, the voices dimmer, as though being heard through water.

Resentful, she'd crept away from the healer's tents and tucked herself into one of the abandoned rooms up on the battlements, curled up on one side of a broken bed and leaning against the stone. Nothing. Nothing but silence and echoes of silence.

Wait. No. Something closer. Close enough to touch. Her eyes strayed upwards, struggling to focus. The boy. The strange boy, if you asked Bruce.

"...Cole?"

"If it breaks again, it might not come back." Or it might not be strong enough. Was it, even now? So many things were still uncertain.

She was scared of him. Like a lot of people were, and yet not. Not because of what he was.

"You're Ariadne." They hadn't had time for names before. By now, it was easy enough to find out. "I'm Cole."

Edited 2015-12-08 18:58 (UTC)

The way he spoke reminded her of River. Which reminded her of home and her own people. It was strange, trying to adjust to those patterns again. Like easing into cold water. Ariadne had been trained far too long and too hard on the right way to use humanoid language.

Still. It was nice to do away with certain pleasantries. She appreciated not having to tell him it was a pleasure to see him again and oh, how did he know her name?

None of that matter.

She dipped into a small curtsy, belying her power. "You can call me 'Airy' if you like. Everyone else does."

It had been more difficult to find her than he'd expected. More difficult than he liked. She was lost, a little, drifting in a fog.

She was still separate, though. He found her eventually.

He sat cross-legged on the far end of the bed, gingerly, tucked into another corner where the frame hadn't collapsed.

"It puts you apart, drags you back behind the Veil, holds you safe but silent."

He'd meant to say hello.

"...what is it?"

Edited 2015-12-08 19:09 (UTC)

"Airy," he repeated, trying out the name, hearing it and everything it meant. "Flying and flitting, slipping and shifting, a wind between the walls. The music makes their eyes light up."

He smiled at her from under the hat. "It's a different name. A nicer name. It makes you lighter, so they don't have to see."

"Application of...heatherum. Foxite."

Her nose wrinkled faintly, trying to remember. Her fingers twitched and curled inwards towards her palm.

"Elfroot. And..."

Not important. Her eyes fixed on him again, face shadowed by that magnificent hat of his. How lucky to have a place to hide at all times. The corner of her mouth creases gently.

"You're back."

The nickname wasn't her invention, exactly. But it was well-placed. Ariadne had all of those qualities. And a tendency to rub off on people, much to their annoyance. Even Aunt Lysia wasn't immune to her charms. And Lysia, more than anyone else, knew the real Ariadne.

That Cole talked like he did too was unnerving. A pity his scent wasn't Alastrian. It would have explained so much.

"Coal is fire and brimstone and hardness," she replied. "I'm not sure it suits you."

Eventually, eventually, Church is going to start getting used to this magic bullshit. Today is not that day. Despite the super pale kid who needs a haircut and, like, some god damn sunlight looking all meek and shy, that he appears out of nowhere has Church jumping almost out of his shiny new skin.

"Oh my god you people and your god damn magic are going to give a guy a heart attack!" He grips his chest, only partly for dramatic purposes. "And then I won't be alive, which is pretty bad."

Edited 2015-12-08 19:53 (UTC)

"Coal keeps the house warm, and softens when it burns." Just saying. Although...

"I don't burn. Though sometimes I help with the fires."

She'd never thought about it that way before. Of course, Alastrians didn't use coal to keep warm. Or to power machines of any kind. Home and hearth meant something different.

It didn't matter though. She was much happier to talk about him than her.

"How do you help fires?" she asked.

Cole stays still when the man jumps, not wanting to spook him any more. Some of the words he uses don't make sense... heart attack? But he can ask about that later.

"You're a new one," he notes. "Recently drawn through the rift. Sorry. I didn't mean to frighten."

He stands up, then. Tall, but still shy, his fingers idly playing with one another in front of himself.

"I'm Cole."

"...Hi." Church still looks the guy up and down kind of warily. "Church. I'm Church. And yeah, I'm still really new to the whole..." He waves a hand around to encompass Skyhold. And...well, everything. "This. You always pop up in a cloud of smoke like a stage magician?"

He didn't like the way all of those sounded, in that order. Herbs could be used for so many things, good or ill. Often, they didn't last forever. Sometimes they did. She didn't want to talk about it.

"Yes. The Mire's full of dead things, but there are enough people there to start bringing life. There will be more to do, elsewhere, soon."

"By adding wood?" How else would one help a fire? "I'm not a mage. I can hear the songs, but I can't conjure them."

Thanks to the 'borrowed' whetstone, the sudden appearance of a person almost has her losing fingers when she jumps and curses, knife clattering to her feet as she tries to catch her breath. She bends to retrieve it, staring so long it's probably verging on rude but usually people disappear into smoke, not the other way around.

"Amico," her voice is too high, shaky like she might laugh, "I appreciate the...the sentiment? Though perhaps not so abruptly."

The last time anything did that, it was falling through the rift as something tall and spindly screamed and raked down with claws, and it's an effort to flick the blade closed and tuck it back in her pocket.

"Oh."

She was genuinely surprised. The way he talked and moved and did things, she would have guessed there was magic involved. Not something as simple and tangible as wood.

Once again, she scolded herself forgetting that looks could decide. And she wasn't the only one who wasn't what she looked like. It was a rough transition, going from the one with secrets to being surrounded by things she didn't quite understand.

But she was learning. And fast.

"Songs are magic? I've never heard it quite like that before. It's very pretty."

"And you'll go again. To help."

She'd wanted to help, though uncertain how. Like this, she wasn't going to be of much help to anyone, unable even to keep from bumping into walls when walking. "I want to go too. Counted too many steps in circles, knowing the stones and the bones inside but never touching. Just a pair of eyes. They have enough."

A small, annoyed huff escaped her lips.

Cole never lingers in one place for very long, but passing slowly through the crowded places in Skyhold is an easy way to catch scraps of worry and hurt. He finds her there, her presence whispering something like other elves he's met here. They came together. They're a family.

There are threads of family spindling out from her in all directions, in fact. Light, wavy, wispy things. Hard to tell if they're still connected, or only flapping in the wind.

She is asleep on a book, a cold cup of tea on the table next to her. But she will wake soon, and the tea will be hot and fresh.

For a while after he found Sam again, he only watched. Sitting on a nearby table, his legs dangling off the edge. The room was hot, the clanging of the hammer rhythmic and loud, almost piercing. None of it bothered him.

It was only after a long stretch, at a point where Sam was about to rest, that Cole spoke.

"It doesn't want to bend, not even when the fire makes it soft. It wants to be cold, hard, immovable." He tilted his head from one side to the other. "It's not at all like magic."

When she does wake, she starts up, irritated immediately with herself for falling asleep while working again. She squints at the steam coming from her tea, though, and blearily wonders who did that for her. Her heart is touched by the gesture, whoever is responsible. Little comforts, little kindnesses seem more acceptable now that she is no longer Keeper's First and giving everything away as quickly as she gets it.

She reaches for the cup, warming her hands half an inch away from the sides.

"Sometimes." Sometimes it was pretty. Sometimes it wasn't at all. Sometimes it hummed and screamed and tried to tear you apart from the inside.

But he hadn't encountered something like that for a long time.

"Sometimes it's more music, and sometimes it's shining. A shard of glimmering light. A beacon that calls not to home, but to help."

He was very clearly looking at her hand.

"No." Sometimes he just appears with no fanfare at all. He isn't certain that would be any better.

"People don't always see me until they need to." There's a note of apology there. He really is sorry for being so startling. "Not even She did."

There was a subtle flutter of one hand on She, in the direction of Church's mark.

(no subject)

[Open to Rifters] Prose setup, but brackets welcome

[Closed] River

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[Closed] Pel - The Library

[Closed] Sam - Smithing

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