OPEN - Follow me home, if you dare to

[helpinghidinghaunting]

WHO: Cole and YOU!
WHAT: Catch-all for Cole's first month!
WHEN: September
WHERE: Various - the Gallows, Kirkwall, possibly TBD
NOTES: Astarion thread: CW - Mentions of abuse, torture, murder, and starving

If you want something special, let me know and I will write us a starter! And a reminder, you can fill out Cole's permissions HERE if you would like him to read your character's pain/past!

Starters in comments.

Comments

Around the Gallows

[helpinghidinghaunting]

It begins suddenly, and it’s just peculiar enough to capture a bit of attention.

Nothing earth shattering - just tiny kindnesses beginning to happen all over the Gallows. A person just thinking they are cold when a blanket or mug of something hot miraculously appears within their reach. A bandage applied to a training wound that stings just a little too much to ignore it...but who bandaged it, they were only there a moment ago? A rumble of the stomach, and then a little cloth parcel with some bread and cheese, sitting there waiting upon turning around.

Perhaps some of the more suspicious people among the number at the Gallows start to be nervous about it - harmless as it may seem, what if there is a demon toying with people? Whispers of possible entrapment, of people dismissing the whole thing...rumors, just being rumors.

In point of fact, though, the Gallows have a new presence haunting the halls - not a demon, no, but not a human, either. Something else. SomeONE else.

You are the target of the newest kindness - but you catch the figure slipping up, letting himself be glimpsed, all gangly limbs and hat and filthy clothes. He hasn’t noticed that you have noticed him yet, drawn taught in a nearby corner, watching you with wary, wild eyes.

((Please feel free to decide what Cole brings your character - it would be something you need at the time, like a sandwich or a book.))

[lumelume]

Mado doesn't sneak up on people, as a rule-- for one thing, he's wearing bright colors most of the time, and for the other, it just seems rude. But he does notice the ragged-looking little fellow sitting there all curled in a corner, and simply goes to sit next to him with a cheerful little smile of greeting.

"Thank you for the beef bone," he says, with total sincerity.

Cole may recall having snuck a bone to a skinny little dog earlier in the day, who had been sunning himself in the courtyard and watching people go by.

[helpinghidinghaunting]

Being approached sends a little thrill of panic through the strange boy for just a moment - but it subsides quickly as he just listens, tilting his head as he considers the person in front of him.

"You were the dog." It's not a question - the feel is the same, even if the form isn't. He blinks owlishly, still all curled in upon himself. He doesn't really question the fact that this man can change himself like that...after all, he wasn't always Cole, was he?

"You were hungry. You needed it."

When you're not used to being thanked, it can be hard to remember to say someone is welcome.

[lumelume]

"Yes," Mado answers easily, not one to play games, "it was very kind of you."

He angles his head to look the boy over, just out of the corner of his eye; there's something strange about this one, more apparent to his canine nose than his human one. Rifters have their own ozone scent, but this doesn't... feel the same.

"Are you of this world?" It's a fair enough question, in these times.

[exequy]

"What the fuck?" Kostos asks as he stands from his desk and turns toward the room's dark corner and the young man tucked into it. His mysterious act of kindness—a book, a very specific book, right when he was cursing the inevitability of having to go down to the library and search for it in the poorly-tended stacks before he could finish his work—is brandished in one hand.

Kostos' gaze is unsubtle in its searching. A rapid journey from head to toe, and especially down both arms, in case there's an anchor. He doesn't find one.

Not a rifter from a world with no doors who needs to be told to knock. Demon, some of the Gallows staff have been muttering lately. He doesn't look like one. He doesn't feel like one.

So the question stands. What the fuck.

[helpinghidinghaunting]

The very moment Cole realizes he is being sized up, he completely freezes - eyes widening, shoulders going taut with tension and terror. No anchor, no sign of being a Rifter, just a gangly, pale young man in worn leathers who looks as though he hasn't slept in weeks.

Meanwhile, Cole is inspecting this man for a very different reason, a song about him, something familiar that stings his own heart a little. He misses someone. It makes him a little sad.

"...You needed that," he finally offers, in a low, small voice, as if it were simple.

[exequy]

"I know I needed it," Kostos says.

Despite his fierce scowl and the obvious suspicion and anger in his voice, he isn't loud. He's soft-spoken—the sort of voice that just isn't good at shouting, even when its owner would like to. He's also Nevarran (by accent, at least), dressed dark in tight trousers and a draping shirt, and not quite tall or broad enough to loom effectively.

He's trying, though. To loom.

"How did you know?"

[bouchonne]

Byerly is not someone who takes particularly well to kindnesses. Nor is he someone who likes seeing sneaking and subtlety. It's a little bit his profession: any credulity he'd had as a younger man was firmly trained out of him by his spymaster, replaced with skepticism that borders on paranoia. It's also a little bit his personality, because there hadn't been much credulity to begin with. You don't live a life like Byerly's and come away with a lot of trust.

"It is not my habit," By says, his voice bone-dry, "to drink beverages of unknown provenance." He lays a hand on the hot cup of coffee he's been brought, and looks at Cole, and says, "Particularly not when they come from boys who look half-mad."

[helpinghidinghaunting]

The tone of Byerly's voice and the pointed words that come with it don't really seem to bother the strange young man in the corner much. He's more surprised at being noticed than he is at being insulted, evidenced by the way he freezes a little as he is addressed. The insult goes right over his head. Likely his look is one of lunacy, after all. Isn't that just being human anyway?

Besides, the coffee is secondary to what this man really needs, and Cole can't give him that by running away because he is being disliked.

"You needed it," he murmurs in a dusty tone, bony fingers wringing together. "It's from the kitchen. I don't know how to make it, I only poured it. Brought it." A pause. "I didn't think you would see me."

[bouchonne]

"You're not exactly subtle," Byerly drawls. Even so, a bit of his annoyance is disrupted by Cole's response. It's hard to maintain anger at someone who looks that nervous. Not that By is about to haul off and trust him, of course - a strange boy mumbling about being unseen is definitely not someone to accept an unknown drink from - but still, it's a bit nasty to yell at some kid.

So he sighs, and hazards a guess: "Are you a Rifter?" After all, Rifters are the oddest lot he knows; it doesn't seem unlikely that this lad would be one of their number.

[armd]

Abby's heard about the kindnesses but not thought much of them, until she reluctantly places her book down on her desk in the library, open, face down, spine protesting– and returns to find it neatly marked and closed.

Somebody slipped a feather there, to save her from dog-earring pages. She glances up, her fingernails pressing into the divots left by the lettering, and notices with a cold wave of shock: a figure crouched in the corner, not unlike the way a stalker hunches over, and it only takes a flash of large, white eyes–

Instinctively, Abby throws the book at him.

[helpinghidinghaunting]

"AH!"

Cole's voice comes out in a terrified yelp as suddenly there's a book coming at him before he even realizes he's been seen - a swift reflex and a trained hand dart up to deflect, sending the story sliding away across the ground, skidding to a stop nearby. He regards Abby with huge blue eyes and a twitching frown, body shaking and pressing further back against the wall in fright.

"Sorry - I'm sorry- I didn't set out to startle-"

[armd]

"Shit–" Of course it's not a fucking stalker, what the hell was she thinking. Abby shoots up from her chair immediately, palms out to indicate she doesn't have any books left to throw, guilt in the downward curl of her mouth.

"It's fine," she says, perhaps too loudly for their current location, only she hates the thought of him thinking this was his fault, "You're fine, I'm– jumpy, and an asshole, I'm sorry.

Are you okay?"

[arkitect]

He's heard a whisper or two, sure-- dismissed them just as easily. Not for lack of belief, but for lack of importance; it doesn't take much to plant an idea in the heads of others, that's true, but there's no reason to think too hard about little things working out. If they are, well, there's no real problem.

Emet-Selch doesn't experience it for himself, though, until he happens to idly set down one of the gloves he tends to wear, the one that covers his shardless hand. The other is nearly always in place, but this one he removes as necessary, and after getting absorbed in his work-- he hadn't even noticed it stayed behind in another room. It turns up on the desk he's using when he isn't looking, and he pauses in his work to tuck it back into one of the pockets of his coat.

-which is when he glances up and sees the figure lingering nearby, his brow furrowing at the sight. "What do you want," he sighs out as he watches him, seemingly undisturbed by his presence; it takes some doing to startle him, after all, and for the moment he supposes he was simply too absorbed in his reading. Something to keep an eye on in the future.

[helpinghidinghaunting]

Either Cole is losing his touch, he thinks as he is addressed when he had thought he should be invisible, or quite a few more people need him here than he had initially thought. Still, it takes him a moment of numb anxiety to be sure he is being stared at, talked to, questioned. After that moment, he shakes his head, speaking in his voice full of cobwebs -

"I brought your glove back. It was left lingering, languishing on its own. I didn't expect you to see me."

For the moment, he's not trying to listen to this stranger's song - but it's old enough to play in his head all the same, notes of ancient pains in minor key.

Training

[helpinghidinghaunting]

Being seen will help people be less nervous, right?

Cole feels uncomfortable, out in the open with all the curious eyes on him, but...it’s for the best. He’s standing on his own in the field, doing some exercises that he has watched others do - push ups, squats, drills with his daggers.

Anyone can tell the scrawny young man is going through the motions, the movements carried out well, but mechanically, stilted, done as anyone ELSE might do. He’s trying to fit in as best he can, trying to tune out the torrent of terror, of trouble, of tacit distrust. At the least, there is talent there when he is not mirroring the moves, when he lets himself be himself.

He drills a combat roll, neatly coming down over his shoulder, but his hat does not come with him.

It lands at your feet.

[elegiaque]

One of the things that Gwenaëlle had found a mercy, when she had first begun to train where anyone besides (fucking) Coupe could see her—

strange things and strange people have now been coming through the rifts for a long time. Many of them have fought alongside the Inquisition and Riftwatch, some of them for years at a time, and the truth is if familiarity hasn't bred contempt (—which she'd debate, but it's not as much fun now when she isn't sure any more what will sincerely set Astarion off) then it has bred complacency. The strange has become familiar. Different sorts of magic, different sorts of people, different levels of capability,

all this to say, minding one's own business isn't as hard as it once was. Years ago now Gwenaëlle had feared being thought less beautiful for her scars, and then later feared being thought foolish for trying to be more than only beautiful, and in both cases, mostly no one gives a shit. Most of the things she was afraid of were in her head. It's a strange sort of comfort, but it's not insignificant.

So the hat is the first thing she notices, lowering her bow from target practise and looking down at it come to a stop near her. She squints at it, and then at the head it definitely came off to judge by that hair, and says, “Do you want me to sew a ribbon into that?”

[helpinghidinghaunting]

In spite of the entire point of this exercise - not the actual exercise, the being seen - Cole starts a little when he is directly addressed. He stands frozen there for a moment, eyes wide, hands wringing at the hem of his leather tunic.

"...A...ribbon?"

He furrows his brow, tilting his head, puzzled. "What would a ribbon do?"

The spirit has seen this woman around here, has watched her train - and in fact, remembers her vaguely from some time ago. But he's never actually TALKED to her, and his voice comes out in a nervous rasp.

[tender]

And Derrica bends to retrieve the hat, dust a few stray bits of hay from the brim before trailing along in Cole's wake. Her staff is slipped to into the strap looped at her back, tucked out of the way with an easy, practiced motion.

"You dropped this," she says, lifting it as he straightens to his feet. "Do you always train with it on?"

It's a question asked kindly, without censure. Derrica can't be sure the hat isn't more hindrance than help, but who is she to judge what someone carries onto the training field and into battle?

[helpinghidinghaunting]

Some day soon, perhaps Cole will finally get used to being spoken to again - but today is not that day. When he straightens to find his hat being held out, to find he's being addressed, he looks like a Nug startled awake in its den.

After a moment of initial panic, however, he does reach out to take the hat, awkwardly gripping it in one spindly hand while he sheathes the knife in his other hand against his back.

"Thank you," he finally mumbles, somewhat mechanically (pleases and thank yous are still a little unnatural on his tongue). "Yes? No. Don't usually train like this. Should I not wear it?"

Lowtown

[helpinghidinghaunting]

The markets in Lowtown are a common haunt for the wandering Spirit - and have been for some time. Lots of hurt here, lots of people who need coin, need help, need protection. Now that he’s known by Riftwatch, it’s a little different - he knows he can’t be stealing from stalls to serve solace to a sore stomach or surly supplicant. He has to do things Right, do them well, do them so no one gets in trouble and he can show he can be trusted.

But...that beggar is so hungry.

And that apple is right there. They need it. He knows. They won’t live much longer if he doesn’t help.

Cole weighs it in his head...and then, frowning, lets himself disappear into the crowd. Perhaps you’re watching, and you see it - a young blonde man with a downcast gaze, suddenly vanishing from sight, then appearing again ten feet away, clutching an apple to his chest with no idea that you saw what he had done.

He would pay the merchant back later, he thinks to himself.

But you see this now, and you see him headed toward the beggar, who can’t seem to see him coming….

[notathreat]

Lowtown is a hodgepodge of all the best and worst of society, filled now with refugees and people struggling to make ends meet. It's also a good place to disappear, and even if Ellie has been avoiding it lately, there are people here she appreciates, and she's on her way back from visiting one of them.

The local thugs have learned by now to stay well clear of her, and so have the pickpocketing urchins for the most part -- all she has is junk and pocket change.

She sees it only by chance. A young man in tattered clothes, first in front of a merchant's stall, and then suddenly gone. He pops back into sight near Ellie, who stops in place, openly staring. Someone behind her nearly runs into her, curses and keeps moving.

... Ellie glances around, but she's the only one who seemed to notice. She steps to one side, nearer a brick wall and out of the walkway, and watches as the beggar seems to look right through the young man.

She steps closer, amazed, realizing all of a sudden that this must be what other people feel when they see her blink out of sight. Except... she seems to be the only one who sees him at all.

A chill creeps down her spine, a thrill of curiosity and the unknown, something exciting.

Unfortunately, she knows better than to trust, so she watches. For now.

[helpinghidinghaunting]

Oblivious to the fact that he's been spotted, the strange young man walks right up to that beggar, gently reaching down to place the apple in front of him with a couple of coins from his pocket. The beggar blinks at it as suddenly it's tangible in front of him, and then, briefly, looks up at his benefactor.

Cole just shakes his head a little, not even saying anything, and walks a few feet away.

The beggar looks down to the apple to start eating it, pauses, and then looks around as if confused where it had come from. The gaunt figure in the hat nods to himself, satisfied with this. He has been forgotten, and the man has been fed. It is a good day.

Wildcards this, after network post;

[illithidnapped]

Astarion watches mercy play out the way someone might watch an infection spread across swelling skin: lip curled in disgust, his arms folded where he stands tight and closed-off against one of a thousand of Kirkwall’s abysmally chalky stone walls, ash fluttering to the ground as always, dust gathered around his heels.

It’d felt like heaven when Astarion first came to it, but now that he understands the murals, the high towers with iron doors, the paintings left up just around every corner of whimpering slaves on their knees, it gnaws at him alongside everything else.

Or maybe he’s just in a piss poor mood.

Either way, the urge to tip the scales in the opposite direction runs high. When that beggar is left with an apple from a kind heart, Astarion reaches out into the passing crowd— and effortlessly plucks one measly little coin purse from the nearest stranger.

One bad deed for one good one. The universe is in balance.

naughty lil bat

[helpinghidinghaunting]

Cole had been walking away, invisible, moving to move on, find the next person who needed his help...but he just so happens to hear a pain he had heard before, calling his attention. He stands a few feet away from Astarion, watching as he reaches out, takes a purse, just because....

Frowning, he approaches, letting himself appear to the pale elf when he is standing right in front of him, standing straight with his hands clenched on either side of him. His icy blue eyes are as perceptive as ever, boring holes, burning from beneath the brim of his hat.

Maybe he should listen more closely this time.

"You don't need that," he rasps, low, more mournful than accusatory, more disappointed than angry.